


In Transit

by The_Readers_Muse



Category: Walking Dead, Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Carol figures out her shit and then some, Carol is a HBIC, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fix-it-kinda-what-Carol-is-up-to-on-her-forced-roadtrip-sort-of-story, Gen, and has some adventures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-14
Updated: 2014-02-08
Packaged: 2018-01-01 10:46:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 30,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1043896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Readers_Muse/pseuds/The_Readers_Muse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She hadn't gone twenty miles down that back country road when the motor gave out. She'd just passed a sign, a homemade billboard of a plump woman wearing an apron - "Auntie Betty's Homemade Pastries, next left," when the engine hiccuped.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own AMC's The Walking Dead, wishful thinking aside.
> 
> Authors Note #1: This is a 'fix-it-what-Carol-was-up-to' sort of fic, meant to fix in after 4x04 – spanning into 4x05 – to whenever Carol comes back to grace our screens. This is written in response to an anon prompt in my askbox on tumblr. Honestly, I just couldn't resist.
> 
> Warnings: Contains spoilers for all four seasons of the Walking Dead, strong language, very much AU probably, angst and more.

She hadn't gone twenty miles down that back country road when the motor gave out. She'd just passed a sign, a homemade billboard of a plump woman wearing an apron - "Auntie Betty's Homemade Pastries, next left," when the engine hiccuped.

Her heart plummeted. The engine light flashed.  _Shit._

She didn't even bother pulling over. She rested her head against the steering wheel as the car coasted to a stop, the sudden absence of the engine lending credence to the creaks and groans as rusty hinges and ill-used metal whinged out into the quiet.

For a long moment she just sat there, one hand on the emergency brake, the other pressed up against her rib-cage – easing a throb – a hurt she hadn't felt in a long time as everything seemed to crash down on her at once.

_She'd made a decision._

She drew in a deep, shuddering breath as the expression on Rick's face when they'd parted flashed in her mind's eye. There had been something different in his eyes then, something fragile,  _breakable_.

_She'd done what she had to do._

For the first time in a long time, she hadn't even recognized him.

_She'd done it for them, for her family._

She wrenched back the e-brake as the thought took root. She expelled a long breath of air, wiping at a single tear that had escaped as she forced herself to look up.  _She'd done it for them._

Overgrown wheat fields, long since gone fallow, rippled in front of her, stretching out on both sides of the road for as far as the eye could see, caught in the light afternoon breeze. It was beautiful, in a desolate sort of way.

The fingers clenched around the steering wheel slackened, if only slightly.

_She could be strong._

A play of shadows danced along the edges of her rear-view mirror. Tantalizing dips and weaves that made hope rise in her breast only to burst into flames in the next. She squinted, getting tunnel vision as she kept her eyes on the side mirror -  _objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear –_ hoping. She didn't know why she half expected to see Rick speeding down the road behind her.

_Maybe he would change his mind?_

She shook her head, because honestly, she knew better. He'd meant what he'd said. The only question was  _who_  those words were truly meant for? Him? Or her? Maybe he was projecting. Maybe this was just the consequences of her actions. The price you ended up paying when you found yourself in a situation, caught between a rock and a hard place, leaving you with nothing but uncertainty – nothing but the realization that you had a decision to make.

She expelled a long, pent-up breath, watching as the golden-brown wheat, long gone to seed, curled lazily in the breeze, swaying back and forth like a vast yellow sea. The fields on either side of her were overgrown to the point where, if she rolled down her window and stretched, she'd probably be able to touch them.

She  _didn't_  regret what she'd done.

She only regretted that she'd  _had_  to do it in the first place.

The conviction behind the thought was comforting, a poor substitute for the sight of familiar faces and the company of friends, but the  _surety_  behind it, the realization that she knew her own mind, was enough to strengthen her. It was enough to fuel her movements as she gathered her things and wrenched herself out of the front seat.

_It was time to go._

She double checked her gun and spare clip, counting under her breath as she reaffirmed what she already knew. She popped the trunk and rummaged through it, lifting the spare tire for good measure as her fingers ran along the edges, rifling through every crevice, every hollow as she took stock of her options. She felt something settle inside as she palmed a crowbar. She had to conserve her ammo. A crowbar and a tire iron seemed a good enough place to start.

She could hear Daryl's voice in the back of her head as she stuffed the tire-iron into her already bulging pack. Snatches of conversation only half remembered from the winter before last, before the prison, back when Lori and T-dog had still been alive. Back when Rick had still been whole.

She forgot how the conversation had started, but she did remember the autumn chill. The way the flames from their campfire reflected off the colored metal and corroded logos of a bunch of construction equipment, mostly bob-cats and front loaders; a construction site they'd decided to make camp in. The place had a small perimeter fence secured by a dinky little padlock and a thin iron chain. It wasn't much, but it was protection enough, at least for the night.

' _At the end of the day the number of bullets you got don't matter,'_ Daryl muttered, stabbing at the fire with the end of a metal rod, the metallic tang almost muted by the crackling flames as the evening meal, a thin soup that was more water and canned chickpeas than anything else, was passed around.

' _You can't rely on bullets. You gotta have a back-up. Anyone can wield a shovel, a crowbar, a piece of pipe,'_  he grunted.

' _I agree,_ ' Rick replied, rousing himself from his thoughts as Lori's back straightened on the other side of the fire. She was already starting to show, her loose shirts now tight around the mid-section. Rick barely spoke to her, Carl too. She'd never seen the woman so miserable.

' _Starting tomorrow we will begin training on knives. It isn't much, but it's a start,'_  Rick affirmed, crouching down on his haunches as Carl's hat bobbled from his place beside him, parroting agreement.

Daryl had just nodded, an awkward dip of his head from across the flames as the others murmured quietly, hunkering down as the bitter wind howled across the open field.

The next day, Daryl replaced her small multi-tool, a Swiss Army style knockoff she'd only really used for the can opener, with a vicious looking switch blade. And more than anything, she remembered the play of muscles that tensed and released down his chest, trickling down his forearms to tighten in the small of his back when he'd shown her how to sharpen it.

If he'd noticed her distraction, he hadn't said a word. If anything though, when she'd asked him to show her again, his expression had only softened.

She shook herself out of her head as the wind suddenly picked up, bringing her back to the present as a chill trickled down her spine.  _The weather was changing._ She shouldered her pack, forcing herself to focus.

She had to find shelter, something that would hold up overnight. Everything else could wait.

_She had to get moving._

But just before she jumped the ditch, pushing her way into the sea of overgrown wheat, she paused, one hand shading her eyes as she looked back the way she'd came. She let her eyes fix on that distant point on the horizon; the one where she figured the prison would be if you could place it on a map or point it out in relation to the position of the sun.

A lump rose in the back of her throat.

This was going to be hard on Daryl.


	2. Chapter 2

The prison was dark. There was no light streaming in through the windows. Everything was muted, muffled -  _close._ She blinked, footsteps echoing through the block as she walked down from the loft, following the high, reedy sound of one of the children sobbing. Something wasn't right, it was still morning.  _Where was the light?_

Her hand drifted down to her holster, absorbing the chill as she palmed the barrel, easing it out as it settled into her grip like a second skin. She looked again. And suddenly it wasn't her gun at all; instead, Rick's python glinted up at her, flashing in the low light.

"What did you do, Carol?" Daryl hissed, voice close at her back, startling her as her fingers clenched tight around the railing. She froze in place, feeling his breath shiver down the back of her neck.

She whirled, wanting to face him, wanting to tell him the truth. But there was only darkness. No one was there. The explanation, the reasoning she'd been carrying around all this time, died on her lips.

The scent of blood, iron-fresh and tangy, rose - filling the air around her with the scent of red. It was the only thing about the moment she could say was familiar.

"You're all messed up woman, where's your head at, huh?" the voice interjected, a hint of sadistic laughter curling around the edges as somewhere in the darkness the door to the cellblock creaked – slamming closed with an agonized scream of warped metal and rusty hinges.

She bit her lip, indecisive. Should she continue down the block? Or stay put?

"Rick was right to leave you behind," the voice continued, sharp nails raking down the small of her back as she started walking again. "Hell,  _merciful,_  even."

"Everyone knows what you did…" the voice whispered darkly, shadowing her as her boots suddenly squelched, splashing through something wet and sticky. She looked down, but all she saw was darkness.

"Don't ignore me, Carol," the voice suddenly spat, low and dangerous as a hand, unimaginably heavy, fell across her shoulder, throwing her up against the railing with a vicious shove. She fell to her knees, the bones in her shoulder creaking as something luke-warm and slippery seeped through the fabric of her jeans.

"Daryl,  _please_ …" she cried, reaching out, desperate for purchase as the railings on either side of her fell away. Something hot trickled through her fingers as she started crawling, inching forward on her hands and knees. Fear rose up like bile in the back of her throat as footsteps bore down on her.

The metal grating was shaking underneath her, shuddering with the weight of a thousand footfalls as she slipped. Falling through a hole in the world as a torrent of blood forced its way down the back of her throat.

She tried to scream, clawing at open air.

_But the voice just laughed._

She woke with a cry, jerking upright as the sensation of falling sent her reeling, limbs tangled in the musty smelling quilt as she tumbled to the floor, wrenching herself clear off the couch before she realized where she was.

Tears streamed unchecked as snatches of the dream filtered through her mind's eye, permeating slowly, like water drip-drying from a wet sponge. Her hand shook as she wiped them away, fingers trembling, feeling unsteady as the morning sun streamed in through the filthy windows. Her stomach churned.

She forced herself to swallow the sob building in the back of her throat. Desperate for a distraction, she looked around, trying to re-orient herself, taking in her surroundings as the unfamiliar bedroom she'd decided to hole up in reflected back at her. Her chest felt tight, suffocating.

She tried to concentrate on breathing, on counting every inhale – marking every exhale, willing down a panic attack as Ed's ghost inched closer.

_She could be strong._

The room, just like everything else in the three-story rancher, smelled like stale air and mothballs. Everything was hazy, with the character of the room, the individuality of the person who'd owned it, partially obscured under a thick layer of dust. It was her fourth farmhouse in three days and perhaps the worst of the lot. Her situation hadn't got much better since the wheat field; in fact, if anything, it'd gotten a whole lot  _worse_.

It had been a nice place once, an old farm house slowly renovated over time. It had been done right though, still managing to retain that old fashioned charm. It was chic in an outdoorsy sort of way. Comfortable.  _Solid._

She'd found a single walker inside, an old woman locked in the root cellar, right leg broken at the ankle. She tried not to dwell on the reason why there hadn't been a scratch on her when she'd taken her crowbar to the back of the walker's skull. But the empty jars and tangle of gunny-sack blankets that had been left, folded neatly in the far corner beside the tiny window, spoke loud enough.

It would have been perfect save for that fact that it was completely undefendable. The bottom floor was a mess of floor to wall windows, the front and back porch were completely exposed. When she'd arrived the night before, the property had been  _crawling_. It was too close to the road; with traffic snarls and old accidents littered over two lanes of crumbling blacktop for as far as the eye could see.

It had been the difference between a bad choice and a worse one. Wait out the night here or try her luck in the dark. In the end, she chose the one that included a warm bed. Beggars couldn't be choosers, after all. It had been sundown and she was still out in the open. Stupid, she honestly, she'd had no other choice.

She had to keep moving. She'd seen what happened when people froze in place, when you got stuck. She couldn't dwell on what she'd lost, on what was waiting for her a couple hundred miles back the way she'd came. She had to be present, aware –  _mindful._

Daryl had taught her better.

She'd been careful, scouting it out as a small herd of walkers ambled around the yard, bumping into the barn, the shed, the side of the ancient looking sedan still parked in the drive. She'd waited for her moment, circling the property until the sun had set on the horizon and the herd was distracted by some distant sound – so far off she could have imagined it – a car backfiring.

She got all the way to the back porch before one of the walkers, an emaciated shell of a thing, genderless and brittle, lurched out from the bushes that bordered the house. She'd dropped it easily, using its momentum to twist out of the way and bring it crashing down into the hard-packed soil. Her knife had sunk deep into its eye socket, silencing it before it could make so much as a sound.

She'd managed to make it inside, surprised to find the door unlocked, just as a group of four staggered around the corner of the house. It'd been close.  _Too close._  But by that point she'd been too tired to care.

She sighed, picking at a bit of fluff that bordered the edge of the quilt, considering her next move idly as the minutes slowly ticked past. She could try for Mason. Somewhere more off the grid, less likely to have been picked clean by other survivors.

She shook her head, the futility of it making her nauseous.  _It wasn't enough, just surviving anymore._ They'd learned that the hard way. Surviving wasn't enough. It was what you were surviving  _for_ that mattered.

_So what was she surviving for now?_

Somewhere outside, the barn door, moss-encrusted and half-rotted, creaked, swinging in the breeze, once, twice, then again before it suddenly slammed closed. The sound echoed through the quiet like a gunshot.

Loud. She winced.  _Too loud._

She blinked, gaze automatically locking on the far window. On point for even the smallest sound, anything that indicated it'd riled up the walkers still milling around in the front yard. She waited, not even aware she'd been holding her breath until her lungs started to burn.

_Nothing._

The curtain, a dusty, embroidered Dutch-lace, billowed outwards, caught in the warm morning breeze. A ray of sunlight reflected oddly off the mess of rusty-brown handprints that had been smeared across the pane - a mess of dried blood that the sun had baked into the glass.

She sighed.  _She wasn't going to be able to stay here_.

The clock on the wall was stopped at 11:44am, lunch time. Beth would have probably fed Judith by now. She was still teething, grouchy. They'd taken to mashing her food again rather than let her suffer through chewing. She wished they had some of that gel she'd put on Sophia's gums when she'd been little. The stuff had been like liquid gold, worth every penny.

She wondered what the others were doing. Who was on watch? Did they miss her? What had Rick told them?

She shook her head, berating herself for letting her thoughts wander. She tried not to think about that, about the others. She couldn't let herself do that, not now. She had to focus, to consolidate and take stock. She needed a place to winter and supplies to get her through it. She couldn't afford to get distracted, to let herself dwell on what if's and if only's.

The back of her eyes stung with unshed tears.  _God she was tired._

They were all hostages to their own humanity. She was no exception to that, same as Rick and Daryl, all of them. She'd tried to do the right thing, to save as many people as she could. And ultimately, she knew that deep down, despite the remorse and regret, the feeling behind the action had been right, _just_.

But hell, if doing the right thing hadn't hurt like a  _sonofabitch_.


	3. Chapter 3

She'd always admired Daryl's ability to meld – to fit in and acclimatize no matter the situation. He was versatile and willing to compartmentalize, to think big rather than small. He was the very definition of the jack-of-all-trades in a way she both admired _and_  envied.

He was adaptable, capable. In many ways, he'd been made for the way the world was now. He hadn't fit in before; like a puzzle piece lost in the wrong box, he'd never quite found his niche. Together, she figured they'd gained more than they'd lost since the world had ended.

Ironic, how things tend to work out.

She still remembered the first few weeks up at the quarry camp, after Atlanta had been overrun. Things had gotten bad after Ed's MREs had run out, after  _everything_ had run out - tempers had been short, people's patience, shorter. Half the camp had been in favor of sending out groups to scavenge, the other deemed it too dangerous. In the end, it'd come down to an all-out shouting match in the middle of camp.

In truth, no one had wanted to listen. Not to logic. Not to reason. They just wanted to yell. To be heard. To try and make their mark in a place, a situation where they found themselves ill-prepared. They wanted answers, help, resolution, solace, comfort, normalcy, revenge and a hundred thousand things that this damn disease had taken away from them.

They were scared, they  _all_ were.

"It's too big a risk! You know that, Dale. We've already talked about this, man," Shane argued. "What if they follow one of you back here, huh?" he asked, tone broaching no argument as Lori and Carl stood behind him, listening, front and center of a good half dozen people who'd gathered to weigh in on the situation.

"At the time yes, but we are running out of options," Dale returned, voice surprisingly level despite the fact that he'd been arguing the same point for nearly a quarter of an hour. "We have almost no food, no supplies and we're low on gas. The risk, if it  _is_  that, is necessary. Rationing what we have left is a short term fix,  _not_  a solution."

"It wouldn't be long, in and out, no problem," Glenn butted in, using the pause to get a word in, gesturing to the backpack already slung over his shoulder. "I know most of the city like the back of my hand anyway. I'll take the long way back, make sure I don't bring back any company," he assured.

She'd said nothing, keeping a hand on Sophia's shoulder. She watched Ed watch the others as tension vibrated down her spine.  _She hadn't said much back then._

"Y'all remember Phil and Samantha?" Shane asked, hands expressive as they flung out, gesturing towards the road. "They made it up here with us after Atlanta was overrun. But they left the next morning. What was it they said? 'Gonna bring back the Calvary?' – go looking for supplies? Enough to get us by until help came?" Shane returned, running a hand through his hair as he snorted in derision.

"Look how that turned out. They never came back. God knows what the hell they found down there. And now you guys wanna bring all  _that_ up here?!" he replied, tone incredulous as half the crowd nodded, murmuring quietly to themselves as Dale shook his head.

"I don't care how quick or careful you are, we don't have the ammo to waste. We don't have the man power or resources to pull something like that off or even defend camp if everything goes south."

"Shane?" Lori tried, speaking up for the first time since the argument had started, Carl close at her hip as he watched the proceedings tiredly.  _Nightmares._

"I understand what you're saying. And honestly, you aren't wrong. But the kids are hungry.  _We're hungry._ We can only go on so long like this. Sooner or later we're going to have to take the risk," she cautioned, talking to Shane – _no_ , arguing right back at him like it was the easiest thing in the world. The woman was fearless, even now.

She remembered glancing over at Ed. She remembered the sudden tremor that had started up in her right hand and the dull ache that resonated in her shoulder. She remembered looking away quickly, eyes downcast.

Shane was just about to reply when something suddenly  _whooshed_  through the air just off to left of the main group.  _Daryl's crossbow_. The bolt bit into the soft wood of a pine on the other side of the clearing with a crackle and a dull thud, piercing through the bark like a hot knife gliding through butter, pinning a squirrel no one had even so much as noticed, mid-trunk.

Half the group startled, some even going so far as to hit the dirt, uncertain of what was happening or _who_  was shooting while the other half whirled around, expecting a threat. She could honestly say that no one really knew how to react when they caught sight of Daryl leaning up against T-dog's van, crossbow braced against his shoulder as he glared at the crowd at large.

The bolt was still quivering, sunk deep into the trunk of a skinny little pine clear across the yard as people began picking themselves up off the ground. Shane's hand tightened around his Mossberg when Merle had the gall to  _laugh_.

No one said a word when Daryl straightened, stalking right into the middle of the crowd, not even seeming to notice as they parted around him like the Red Sea. He pried his bolt out of the tree unconcernedly, acting like he had all the time in the world as he tucked the dead squirrel into his belt, easing a rag out of his back pocket and wiping the bolt clean.

"You don't need no fancy shit to eat," the man commented, head still bowed, eyes on the task at hand as inspected the bolt closely. To anyone else he might have simply been talking to himself. But she knew better. "None of that pre-cooked, cellophane  _bullshit_  they were serving in the camps."

"I'll go out, get us some pheasant, maybe a deer if we're lucky," Daryl continued, looking up, face a mask of hard lines and a flippant sort of expression she figured he put on to show the world that he couldn't care less. That he'd leave them all to starve at a moment's notice if something better came along.

_Pity he wasn't a better liar._

"Go on your supply run," Daryl grunted, looking over at Glenn with a shallow little nod before he turned his attention back to Shane. "Now is as good a time as any, when we still got options. You can't wait till we got nothing. Going out there weak on an empty stomach is just asking for trouble. We all gotta eat and I think it's pretty clear by now that no one's comin' – not the government or FEMA, not even the god damned marines," he imparted with a snort, unaware he had everyone's undivided attention as the words started to sink in – permeating through the layer of denial people had been building up around them like a wall ever since Atlanta had fallen.

"Stick to the outskirts," he advised, eeing Glenn down as he nodded eagerly, almost jumping from one foot to another as Shane made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. "Stay on foot. No noise no problem."

"We'll go huntin'," Daryl added, acting like it was already decided as he gestured over to Merle - the older man just flicked a bit of ash off the end of his cigarette, watching the proceedings with a mocking sort of interest from his seat by the fire.

The silence that followed was discomforting. Even Daryl seemed to be waiting for some sort of argument. But if he was looking for a confrontation, he didn't get it.

"Whatever man," Shane finally sighed, mashing his cap back on his head as he met Glenn's anxious stare. "It's your funeral."

Glenn's expression turned queasy. Firm, but a bit green around the edges.  _Brave little thing._

"Here, might as well make 'yerself useful," Daryl grunted, surprising them both when he crossed over to where her and Ed were standing, smacking the dead squirrel right into the center of Ed's chest, dripping blood and all.

"Skin it, gut it. It'll hold 'yer daughter up for a little while. Think you can handle that?" Daryl retorted, an edge, different from the one he'd used before, coloring his tone. It seemed sharper somehow, harder –  _vicious_.

He hadn't even _looked_  at her.

And for the first time since he and his brother had chased the dusk all the way up the long winding road that led to the Quarry, pulling in with a rumblin' motor and twin suspicious glares, recognition flashed.

_What was it they said about birds of a feather?_

Ed's spine arched like a wet cat, affronted and angry. But before he could say even so much as a word, Daryl was already moving, loading the bolt back into the bow as he yelled for his brother.

"Now, if 'yer all done flapping your gums, you're scarin' the game," he growled, eyes flicking from Shane to Dale respectively, dark and glittering under long lashes before he dipped his head and, without another word, slouched off in the direction of the tree line.

Ed had just muttered under his breath, grumbling about 'rednecks' and 'stringy-ass meat' as he stared at the squirrel clutched in his fist - held up by the tail, with clear disgust.

"Try not to kill each other while we're gone!" Merle added after a beat, tone sing-songing and mocking as he pocketed his flint and slid his buck knife – now freshly sharpened – back into its sheath. The older Dixon had shouldered both packs as he'd sent Shane a half-assed salute, following his brother into the forest with a bow-legged sort of flourish she'd come to attribute to spending too much time nursing a bottle of tequila rather than doing something constructive.

In the end, she wasn't sure who had been more surprised, Dale or Shane.

Personally, all she remembered in the moments after, in between the smell of cooking meat and Sophia's eager face, was marvelling that she'd finally heard the younger man string together  _more_  than a few words at a time. In fact, it'd felt like a perverse sort of treat to have gotten as much as they had. As strange as it was to even consider.

She smiled at the memory, unsheathing her knife and squinting into the early morning glare as she advanced on the back fence. She'd spent the last two days in a townhouse on the edge of the suburbs, it was about forty miles from the farm house and untouched – with the musty smell of long rotted food and mildew having been the only things that had greeted her when she'd slipped through the basement window.

The cold steel of her knife gradually warmed in her palm as she kept her eyes on the target.  _Easy now. Slow. Don't startle it. Breathe._

Daryl had been more cautious back then, bottled up and wary. Like a feral dog that had more ribs showing than you figured it outta, but wouldn't let you come near enough to feed it.

She breathed in through her nose, aiming. The knife felt light in her grip –  _right._ She knew this. She cocked her head, breathing low, willing herself to relax as she corrected her stance.  _Careful now._

The blade flirted with the vulnerable curve of her palm, a hair's breath from breaking skin as she drew it back. She could practically feel his warm weight against her back, correcting her posture, her aim, with those rough but unbelievably gentle movements. Even when he'd carried her out of the tombs all those months ago, finding her weak and alone in that lonely little cell, he'd  _always_  held her like that.

He held her like he was afraid of breaking her, like he wouldn't be able to forgive himself if he did.

Her knife clattered off the edge of the fence with a dull clang. The squirrel she'd been aiming at, a fat black-haired little thing, chittered in alarm, launching itself into the low hanging branches the next house over, chirping a litany of angry sounds in her general direction before it skittered off across the bark, exit covered by a thin veil of leaves.

She gave it a dirty look, cursing under her breath.  _So much for breakfast._

Daryl had always made this sort of stuff look _easy_.


	4. Chapter 4

There were some interesting perks that came with being on your own. You could move fast, travel light. You only had yourself to feed and required only a small space to spend the night. You lived for yourself when you were alone. You had only yourself to rely on, with no other responsibilities or duties other than those you chose for yourself.

It was freeing, in a terrifying sort of way.

Of course, the flip side was that everything fell to you, the cooking, the cleaning, scavenging and protecting,  _everything_. She'd known what to expect, but honestly, she hadn't been prepared for the reality of it. The nights were the worst, knowing that no one was standing watch. She still didn't feel safe, no matter how well secure - she was barely sleeping.

She was prone to jerking awake at all hours, half convinced she'd heard something breaking in. Half convinced her ears had caught the tail end of a familiar shout as a scream bubbled up in the back of her throat. The coat stand on the opposite side of the room morphing into something from a nightmare – looming in the dark before her flashlight clicked on and reminded her that she was alone.

She didn't think she'd ever get used to it.

Or maybe she just didn't want to.

Either way, she didn't want to examine the feeling too closely.

She drummed her hands along the steering wheel as she turned onto the highway. She'd passed the sign,  _"Welcome to Mason"_  nearly a mile and a half back. She'd been sticking to the back roads, taking switchbacks through fields and deeking up gravel roads whenever she could. The old sedan, the same one that'd been parked in the driveway of the farm house, turned like a tank. But the gas gauge was full and the keys had still been hanging on the hook by the front door. It'd taken awhile, but eventually the trusty old thing had finally started.

She slowed, letting the steering wheel skim along the inside of her palm as she avoided a multi-car pile-up, then another. The highway was littered with gaping doors and open front hoods with burn marks that had licked across warped metal and blood spatter long dried onto the inside of car windows.

She bit her lip, trying to see if there was a clear way through. She looked down at the map on the passenger seat. There was a turn off, a quarter of a mile up the road, an exit that would take her down into the outskirts of the county.

She was low on food, low on everything really. She couldn't put off a supply run any longer.

There was a bus parked neatly at a rest stop on the other side of the road. And in spite of the fact that there was a walker shambling across the median towards her, all battered hospital scrubs and ancient blood stains, the vehicle caught her eye. It was a city bus, its sides pockmarked with dents and unidentifiable smears. But what  _really_  piqued her interest was the reinforced bumper someone appeared to have welded onto the front. A metal monstrosity that seemed to be a cross between one of those thick-set cattle gates, barbed wire, and half a dozen metal spikes arranged like a collection of antique spears.

She squinted, coasting unconcernedly past the walker still flailing around in the ditch. It was stuck in the mud, scrambling through the weeds. The advertisements on the side of the bus were for Atlanta.

Wait.  _Atlanta?_

The walker clawed its way out of the ditch, fingernails splitting as it dug its fingers into the blacktop, snarling, it tottered to its feet and started running at her. She hit the gas, leaving both the walker and the bus in her rear view mirror. Quickly to be forgotten.

She was stuffing her pack with canned fruit, cherry cocktails and those pudding cup orange wedges that Sophia had always turned her nose up at, when a smile tugged on the corner of her lips - recognition momentarily chasing away that of loneliness.

Everything about this place reminded her of her first solo run with Daryl. They'd been raiding a small corner store grocer, almost exactly like this one, only their store had been about twenty miles from the prison and partially picked over, with a few walkers, still wearing employee vests and name tags, haunting the back aisles.

She listened carefully as a sound – too far away to be identifiable - echoed from somewhere down the street, opposite the way she'd driven in. She remained like that for a handful of beats before crossing the aisle, her crowbar at the ready as she angled towards the canned meats.

She tip-toed through something long dried, the husks of dehumidified _whatever_ flaking off like salt tracks around an inlet pond. A broken jar –  _'_ _Claussen's Sweet Pickles'_  – was half hidden underneath the corner aisle. It was the only sign that someone had even been here when the world had gone to hell.

Daryl had made her wait outside while he'd cleared out the place, telling her to stand by the door and make sure nothing snuck in while his back was turned. She knew he was coddling her – or at least the closest thing she figured Daryl could get to it – but privately, when the  _thock!-thock!-thock!_ of Daryl's crossbow had echoed in the darkness of the unlit store not a minute later – she'd been absurdly grateful.

One of the (many) problems with taking on the survivors from Woodsbury meant dozens of hungry new mouths to feed. Rick and Hershel had plans to turn the front yard into a garden. But until they finished that, it meant supply runs and  _a lot_ of them. Daryl was out every day, either on a raid or hunting and they were barely breaking even.

Everyone was tired. Everyone was suspicious, uncertain. But at the end of the day, everyone was trying. So, despite everything, she figured that was something.

It had been the first time they'd been alone for  _weeks_. And honestly, she relished it. Having his full attention was one of her favourite indulgences. It was a careful game they were playing; a dance to which neither of them really knew the steps. But as much as it kept on getting more and more complicated, the longer whatever it was they had between them stretched, it'd  _never_  seemed more  _right_.

She liked to think they were both working up to it, in their own way.

She figured the trouble started when she began to feel complacent, flitting from aisle to aisle, more excited than a kid on Christmas as she examined bags of rice, canned beans, and dried goods with a contemplative eye. She pushed her shopping cart around and around the store before she let herself start choosing, occasionally running over an arm, a pony-tail or blood-streaked sneaker as she tried to take the corners at a decent clip.

She felt bad about it. But then again, shopping carts didn't exactly have the best turning radius.

She remembered being surprised that so many of the walkers Daryl had put down were still wearing their employee vests, " _Mr. Ming's Corner Grocer_ ,  _where Neighbors are Family."_  The door had been wide open when they'd arrived, and by the look of it, the place was already well picked over.

_Why hadn't they left? Why had they just stayed in here?_

"What do you think about sneaking some of these?" she asked, holding up a handful of chocolate bars from the bin by one of the tills.

"Rick said only what we need," Daryl grunted, crossbow balancing in the front of the cart as he popped out the end of the cleaning products aisle.

She just grinned, taking the entire bin and emptying it into a grocery bag. "Then we will  _definitely_ be needing these," she assured, shoving a Hershey's cookies and cream into her jacket pocket just in case.

"At least the kids will be happy," he snorted, leaning up against the side of the aisle, hip cocked and arms crossed at his chest. The picture of tall, dark and capable, his own cart already piled high with jugs of bleach and non-perishables.

"Who said anything about the kids?" she joked, wagging a finger at him as one of the magazines, sun-faded and fluttery, caught her eye. "Do you know how long it's been since I've had an honest to god bar of chocolate?!"

The title of the magazine, a Time special edition, was almost mocking as she started towards the canned soups and crackers. " _Is this the End of Times? Politicians say no – Pope says yes. What do YOU believe?"_

Either way, she knew she didn't imagine the chuckle when, with gentle toss, a bag of chocolate chips came sailing over from the other aisle, landing square in her cart with cheeky little bounce.

She swore she hadn't smiled so much in ages.

By the time her cart was full, Daryl had already emptied his into the truck twice. He'd even gone so far as to start dismantling some of the shelving to extend the kitchen storage area. They'd already run out of space with what Rick, Daryl, Michonne and Tyreese had managed to steal from Woodsbury during the evacuation. Quarters were tight no matter how you looked at it. They were still clearing out and sanitizing the other cell blocks, so right now, the majority of the people from Woodsbury were still sleeping on the cafeteria floor. It would be an understatement to say that tempers weren't a little high.

Looking back on it, she wasn't exactly sure how it'd happened. One moment she'd been piling bags of flour and tin cans into the back of the truck, and in the next, clenching fingers had wrapped around her ankle from under the tail-gate, yanking it out from under her and sending her sprawling.

Her head slammed up against the side of the door frame, dazing her as a face, horrific and ruined, all slashed skin and lidless eyes, bared its teeth at her. It used her boot as leverage, pulling itself forward. One of its legs ended at the ankle, the other at the knee. She – because it  _had_  been a she – had been wearing yoga pants with a flowery pink stripe down the outside of each leg. At least she  _thought_ they were pink.

Everything slowed, the pain fanning out down the back her skull, the urgency of the walker clawing its way up her leg. Even the sound of her pulse throbbed between her temples, the  _clang-clang-ping_  of cans as one of the bags spilled at her feet, was muted -  _calm_. Her ears were ringing.

Her fingers scrambled, trickling down to the holster at her hip. She felt the ricochet of every snap as she undid the buttons and yanked out her Glock. Her aim was wild, panicked, with the first shot peeling unsteadily off to the left, barely missing one of the back tires as the walker gnashed its teeth, gumming at the leather of her high-tops.

There was a yell behind her but she didn't stop. Her next shot caught the thing in the neck. It flopped, still alive, still reaching despite the fact that its spine had been severed. Teeth snapped inches from her thigh, grazing the thin material of her jeans as something – no -  _someone_  in the back of her head started screaming.

_Sophia._


	5. Chapter 5

It was only on the third shot that she finally put it down, drilling a hole right through the creature's forehead. The final shot echoed, lingering in the air like the heat of a Georgian summer after twilight.

" _Carol!"_

A strangled sound rose up; building in the back of her throat only to exit as a whimper, a half-sob that she regretted the moment she uttered it. It was okay to be afraid. To scream, yell, and cry at the injustices and fears that were so rampant in this world.

But that sound was different, familiar – dark. It reminded her of furtive stares in the emergency room and the smell of alcohol on Ed's breath.  _She wasn't that woman anymore._

Daryl pulled her up by the armpits, dragging her out from under the corpse with a jerk, patting her down as she hung onto his arm, unsteady as the world dipped. She shook her head, blinking, trying to focus. Daryl was saying something, shaking her.

_Christ, her head hurt._

"I'm-I'm alright," she managed; gun tight in her palm as she flicked on the safety. "It didn't get me." She felt more than saw his nod, his hands still running down her arms, her sides, the small of her back. He didn't even seem to be aware of it. And honestly, she didn't say a word. She just took it for what it was and treasured it.

He was warm, in fact, he  _radiated_  it. She couldn't see his face, but she could feel him. She could feel him in the fingers ghosting across the skin that peaked out above her hips; her shirt and sweater rucked up the smallest of bits in the struggle. She could feel him in the warmth of his breath as it ghosted across her nape, his scent a riot of contradictory smells. He smelt like the rain, like disturbed earth and fresh nicotine. He smelt familiar in the best of ways, but still host to that small hint of darkness, of wildness he'd kept around him like a shadow since day one.

She was about to say something, perhaps to tell him that the dizziness had faded, skirting around the fact that while his breathing _had_ slowed, the press of him against her had  _not_ , when he suddenly paused –  _listening_.

Their breathing, ragged and loud, seemed to count out the beats. She caught onto his urgency long before she heard them, heart dropping right into her gut when his spine stiffened.  _Walkers._

"Damnit," Daryl cursed, launching himself towards the door, snatching his crossbow from the cart as he went. "Com'on, we gotta go,  _now_!"

The echo of stampeding feet was loud in the exaggerated hush.

_They were coming._

They made it to the door the same moment the first of the pack stumbled around the corner of the building. Daryl made a split-second decision, judging the variables faster than she could even process as he suddenly stopped in mid-run. She collided with the broad span of his back, nearly upending them both, but by then he was already wheeling around, pushing her through the door and slamming it shut behind them – blocking them in.

"No time," he explained, turning the deadbolt the same moment the first walker crushed up against the glass. "We'll make our stand here."

"What about out back?" she asked, reloading with trembling fingers as the  _thunk-thunk-thunk_ of walkers hitting the glass echoed through the empty store.

"Dead end," he bit out, dragging a table over from the window, flipping it up against the door to act as a barricade as a dozen fists slammed against the glass, moaning and snarling as a crush of bodies – maybe twelve or thirteen strong - clawed at them through thin double pane.

Daryl kicked down a display – bug repellent - using it to better reinforce the table as the glass started cracking. The crush of walkers against the door was blocking out the light. She clenched her fist, forcing herself to calm - to focus.

_Use it._

"This is the kill zone, understand?" he rasped, indicating toward the small channel he'd created around the door, a straight line of overturned shopping carts and gift-card racks. It was a pen, a cage, a distraction.

"We can take 'em but we can't let too many get past the door. If we keep some blocked up, we can control their movements, make 'em easy targets," he continued, sweeping down across the front of the barricade before coming to join her by the tills. He hopped on the belt of the nearest one to the door before reaching down and giving her a hand up. He jumped the aisle, landing beside the till on the check-out beside hers as he checked the tension on his bow.

She nodded, keeping her eyes on the window. Hair-line fractures were spidering across the glass, creaking at the strain as the walkers tore at it. They were fogging up the glass with bloody smears and condensation from a dozen gaping mouths as ragged fingernails screeched across the glass. A shiver dipped down her spine, uncomfortable and grating as the sound resonated like nails on a chalkboard.

"Conserve your ammo. Don't shoot till you have a clear shot," he advised, giving her a look before nodding. "Don't let 'em rattle you. You've faced worse. We've got this, just stay alert. I move, you move, got it?" he asked, his dark eyes shadowed underneath the fan of his bangs.

_He used to be such a good liar._

She was about to reply, to say something encouraging or funny, something that would take them back to that moment only a few minutes before when they'd been bantering about chocolate bars and inconsequential things. Only she didn't get the chance. Because a second later, the glass  _shattered_ , raining down on the filthy concrete like confetti at a wedding and suddenly all there was to do was shoot.

For a while it actually worked, they kept the walkers within the barricade, picking them off one by one from their position atop the checkouts. But by the time she had to reload, to fumble with her spare clip and slam it home, one-two-three had slipped between the cracks, disappearing behind them.

She took down the first, a man with red sneakers. Daryl caught the second with his pistol, a woman with a missing hand. She was barefoot and wearing nothing but a blood smeared sports jersey. But then there were more piling in through the door and she couldn't find the third and Daryl was shouting and-

Daryl's crossbow caught the last walker stumbling through the door right between the eyes. They waited, on point, but there was nothing. No dragging feet, no moans. They'd made it. Anyone else would have said something smart, something to mark yet another close call, but honestly, they didn't have to say a word. They were  _beyond_  that.

"Com'on," he grunted, keeping one eye on the door as he jumped down from the till, "we've gotten enough for one day, let's wrap it up."

She couldn't have agreed more.

"I'll get the cart," she replied, hurrying down the far aisle as he set about collecting his bolts. Figuring they should at least get what they'd already collected as Daryl cleared a path to the truck.

She didn't remember the third walker until it caught her halfway down the aisle, lurching out from behind a display of curry mixes and taking her down against the side of the aisle, the shelving buckling underneath them.

Her scream echoed in the close space, but she didn't hear it. She had the walker by the wrists, her arms having come out automatically, pushing it away as they'd fallen, as the shelving had collapsed, sending produce flying. She landed flat on her back right in the middle of it, kicking part of a shelf clear off as the walker's full weight fell square on top of her.

Teeth, black-streaked and rotted, snapped just inches from her ear. The sound was sobering enough to make her focus, to ignore the pain radiating up from her back as the sharp edges of the crumpled shelves dug into her spine. She wrestled with it; trying to kick it off, trying to roll it so she could-

_Where was her gun?!_

Her chin tipped up, searching, her free hand flailing out wildly. She caught the gleam of the barrel, partially obscured underneath a pile of metal brackets and a package of rice crackers. It had been knocked out of her hands when the walker attacked was too far away.

_If she could just-_

She could hear Daryl somewhere off to her left, running, but her arms were weakening,  _straining_. She wasn't going to be able to last, the muscles in her arms trembled, barely able to keep the thing at bay. But just when she figured she wasn't going to be able to hold it back any longer, an idea flashed.  _Her knife_!

The thing lurched forward, gaining traction atop the warped metal. She winced, disgusted as spittle sprayed across her lips, teeth so close to her skin she swore she felt the air as the thing snapped, teeth grazing across her flesh again and again as she centered herself.

_She had to time this right._

It was only when the thing launched itself forward that she moved, kicking up with her legs and heaving it up and off to the side, upsetting its balance as her hand whipped down to her belt knife. She pulled it free and with a cry, sinking it deep into the putrid thing's eye socket, scrapping against the inside of its skull just as its hands closed around her shoulder, leaning in for the final bite before it collapsed, a dead weight across her chest.

"Carol! Shit! You alright? – Carol?!" Daryl yelled, skidding to her side, crossbow raised, a millisecond too late as black blood oozed across her skin, a trickle turning into a stream as she yanked the blade free, wiping it on the walker's shirt as she caught sight of him amidst the wreckage that had once been 'Aisle one – rice, pasta, and dry goods.'

"Fine!" she called, spitting out a mouthful of raw rice as she shoved one of the bags off to the side. She caught sight of him as he moved a bunch of shelving out of the way, a mess of too large eyes and sweaty bangs that hung stringy against the frown lines.

And honestly, in spite of everything, she knew right then that she could get addicted to that look. The look that was all relief and worry, a fan of dark lashes against darkened hollows. Almost as if he were caught between trying to figure out how to go about hugging her or to take her to task for being so god damned  _stupid_.

Because it was all for her, and this time, she knew it.

"Damn woman, you really  _do_ have nine lives don'tcha?" Daryl grunted, peering over the overturned shelf, surveying the damage before he clambered to her side. He picked his way over the mountain of flimsy metal and snapped-off hinges, accidentally kicking at a ripped bag of flour as he went.

She had to stop herself from laughing out loud when the action sent a powdery mushroom cloud pluming up towards the ceiling, speckling them with white as somewhere underneath them, one of the walkers, still pinned and trapped underneath a couple hundred pounds of metal, groaned.

She just grinned, taking his hand, clammy with sweat and a grip that was just a little too hard, as he pulled her gingerly to her feet. Her heart was still beating in her chest, the adrenaline making her giddy.

 _Nine Lives._  Call her crazy but she'd always liked the sound of that.


	6. Chapter 6

It took three days of driving back and forth, loading up on canned food and whatever else she could scavenge from the grocery store and the health and wellness boutique beside it, before curiosity got the better of her.

She was on her way out of town, intending to spend another night in the dinky one room shack she'd been staying in since she'd decided to try her luck in Macon. It was secluded, but that was the only thing it had going for it. But since she wasn't familiar with the area, she was content to rough it, at least until she got her bearings.

She approached the city bus cautiously, the same one she'd driven past for the last three days, looking for any sign that it had been moved, any recent activity of  _any_  kind. But if there was, she certainly couldn't see it. The tires were still sitting in the ruts, all dried mud and gravel that curved around the wheel wells. It must have been raining when they'd stopped here. When had it last rained? A week? Maybe a week a half ago?

She had her gun up as she circled around the entirety, eying the spikes and cattle grate with a wary, curious eye. The blood smeared across them was dry, old. Her lips quirked, uncertain, but when she made it around the thing without even so much as a hint of a groan or sign that  _anyone_  was inside, she figured it was worth a look.

It was a city bus alright, but whoever had been using it had certainly done some modifications, because instead of the lever operated doors with the clear plastic and rubber edges that were so common on every city bus known to mankind, someone had replaced the entire door with welded steel. The handle, a simple lock from the inside sort of contraption, was solid enough. But what  _really_  caught her attention was that the dust on the handle was undisturbed.

No one had been here for days, maybe even as long as a week.

She bit her lip; there was nothing wrong with taking a peek, after all.

She tried the handle, locked. She came around the other side, keeping one eye on the road as she shoved a suitcase, empty and worn, off to the side. The interstate was littered with trash, abandoned cars and all manners of stuff people had jammed into their vehicles last minute. Extra clothes, sleeping bags, blankets; they had all been abandoned once grid-lock had hit. As ghoulish as it sounded, it was god damned handy – at least when it wasn't getting in the way.

She'd come to see it as a resource rather than a slight or an act of desecration. Lori had never been comfortable with it, but the truth was, it'd saved their lives more than once since they'd lost the farm. She liked to think it was just another way of recycling,  _repurposing_. At least those that were left could put it all too good use. Making sure people's last efforts hadn't been a complete waste. Just like if anyone had found their way into her old home, using what they'd left behind, taking shelter for the night. It was just how the world was now.

She frowned when she found the driver's side door locked as well.  _How was she supposed to get in the damn thing?_ She stood back, hands on her hips. It'd been a long time since she'd taken a city bus, but Sophia's school bus had been one of those new things, with the fire exits, pop out windows and-

_An emergency hatch!_

She rounded the back end, excited now as she began to catch on. Because the modifications hadn't just stopped at the door and reinforced front end, no, they'd screwed a ladder, a little metal and plastic type thing you usually see in backyard swimming pools so that you could boost yourself up and clamber onto the roof. She holstered her gun, doing a complete 360, making sure nothing had snuck up on her, before she stepped onto the back bumper. She tested the ladder's give, cautious, before she finally let it hold her full weight. The ladder creaked; she winced as the sound of stressed plastic and warped metal whinged out into the silence. But despite the sound, it held steady - seemed sturdy enough.

She clambered up, movements light but unhurried as she swung a leg over the rooftop and rolled onto the top of the bus. The metal top was warm, a mess of dirty foot prints and black scuff marks where cheap sneakers had met with white paint. At least she knew it was well used. Maybe they'd lost the keys somewhere along the line or maybe they'd lost the person who'd been carrying them, who knew. Either way, judging by the wear and tear, they were up here a lot.

She popped the hatch, waiting for a handful of beats before she poked her head inside. It was dark, surprisingly so. She clicked on her flashlight and shone the beam inside, quickly realizing why. They'd duck taped blankets across the windows. It was genius really; they could hide in plain sight, just park on the side of the road and spend the night. As long as they were quiet and kept the light low, no one would have been any wiser, walker or otherwise.

She had a feeling Daryl would have liked these people already.

There was another ladder, a small step-stool sort of contraption set up directly below. She stepped down gingerly, holding onto the edge of the hatch just in case the ladder wasn't sturdy. For a long moment there was only empty space, she kicked out, feeling blindly, sighing with relief when her boots met with the top step. She remained perched there, one hand on the hatch, the other holding up the flashlight, ready to bolt on a moment's notice as she shone the light into the darkest corners.

 _Nothing._ The place was deserted.

She unhooked the nearest curtain, letting the late afternoon light shine through the grubby windows. Dust motes whirled, a hundred billion infinitesimal specs caught in each individual beam as the weak Georgian sunshine filtered through the trees. The bus smelled, oddly enough, like people – a mixture of sweat and perfume, propane and laundry detergent. Not of blood or death, but rather, _life_.

It was almost disconcerting. Welcome, but strange.

The Prison had never lost the smell of death, of old blood and spilled fluids. It had been the first thing she'd noticed since going off alone. Other than the silence. She was still getting used to that. Sometimes she found herself talkin' aloud just to hear the sound of a voice,  _any_ voice.

She'd told Rick that back before all this, before the quarry and the news reports she'd stayed up all night watching, unsure of what to believe as words like martial law, containment, and infection suddenly became frightening – that her idea of happiness was not being alone. And now, despite the fact that she wasn't the same woman who had gotten into that car with Ed, Sophia curled up and terrified across her lap, barely making it out of the neighbourhood as a van barrelled right into the neighbour's house, the hood and windshield covered in walkers - she found she could certainly sympathize.

The truth was she'd  _never_ liked being alone.

Perhaps it was time that changed.

She looked around, gun lax in her grip as her eyes automatically took a tally. There were at least a dozen cans of fuel, an oil lantern and a propane camp stove. Boxes were stacked to the ceiling wherever you looked, with food, knickknacks, papers and utensils stashed above her head, balanced on a board that had been shoved through the handholds meant for standing passengers. Whoever lived here had certainly made it their own; removing all but a few of the seats, they'd created a living space. They'd scooped out the buses innards and remade it right down to the last bolt and screw.

The sleeping area was tidy, three sleeping bags unfurled beside each other with a tangle of three or four different blankets, a pretty brown embroidered duvet and a knitted throw-over that all seemed to be fair game between them. Their pillow cases were identical, all from the same set.  _A family set._

A lump rose up in her throat.

She crossed over to one of the less intimidating towers of boxes, taking the top one down, sinking down on her haunches as she peeked inside. The box was light enough that she should have known better. But curiosity can be a tricky thing, so of course she had to look. Her brow arched when she realized it was full of papers.  _Who would carry around a bunch of junk like this?_ These days, you couldn't hold on to things, dead weight could get you killed.

The papers were mostly loose, a few that had been three-hole punched and twist-tied together – the same type of paper Sophia used in her binders at school. She picked up a stack, flipping through the dates at random. Each page, front and back was choking with the same looped off handwriting. It was a diary.

Snatches of words caught her eye as she dug down to the oldest entries.  _'Barely made it out alive.' – 'Our bus driver got bit. Probably sometime during the evacuation. He got through the check points somehow; maybe they weren't checking people anymore because of the panic. Either way he turned halfway down the interstate.'_

She continued reading with interest; she'd always wondered what had happened to the long line of buses waiting to get out of the city. Everyone who didn't have their own transportation had been crammed onto the buses in the early stages of the evacuation. She remembered looking back at the long winding line as they'd inched past the last military barricade. Those poor people had looked so miserable. Lori had heard that they'd been lined up since the night before, waiting for a spot on one of the buses.

She shivered, remembering. There had been too many people and not enough buses. God knows how many were left behind. How many were left to fend for themselves when the quarantine lines had been broken. She and Ed had been lucky; they'd been friendly with Shane and Lori in the safe zone and left together when things started to break down. All she knew was that Ed had barely flicked a brow when Shane and Lori had returned from their walk down the road; their faces drawn as people began running, crying, saying terrible things. Things like "fire-bombing" and "Atlanta," things she hadn't known how to explain when Sophia had asked her. The decision to follow Shane and Lori off the main road had caused barely a ripple between them.

It was the first time in a long time she figured they'd actually agreed on anything.

' _A man sat down beside me. Fell on me more than anything, actually. The old lady sitting next to me – yeah the same one from the evacuation center with the washed out highlights and the scary ass nails, got up to use the bathroom; he was standing beside us, clutching that bright blue backpack of his. I don't think he meant to take her place, but when the bus started swerving, lurching and spinning out as the soldiers tried to stop the bus, everyone standing was getting knocked around. And in the panic he grabbed my hand. Or maybe I grabbed his. Neither of us remembers anymore…'_

' _I told him I'd never held hands with a stranger before. God I was nervous, babbling, Mum was right, I AM hopeless. But he'd just smiled, shaky, but real as a single gunshot echoed through the bus. I think he was trying to distract me from the way the bus driver suddenly went limp across the steering wheel. But I knew. You couldn't miss it. You could tell by the way the soldiers were talking that something wasn't right. Everyone was panicking, trampling each other as the soldier's radios crackled, suddenly coming alive, pitching with screams that you could actually hear from outside, from the other buses. But in the middle of it all, he just turned around and looked me right in the eye.'_

" _Well, we can't have that, now can we? My name is Kyle."_

' _I think I'll remember that moment till the day I die…'_

She looked up, eyes straying to the corner of the sleeping area. But the frayed blue backpack, now threadbare and stained simply reflected back at her like the answer to an unasked question.


	7. Chapter 7

She returned the papers to the box with a sigh. She couldn't read anymore. She didn't want to. Every word seemed to bring back memories, memories of the beginning, back when Sophia had-

The words weren't meant for her anyways.

Everyone coped in different ways. Some people had their families. Rick had Carl and Judith, Tyreese had Sasha and Hershel had his girls. Some people put up a shield, chasing things like revenge. Others made a  _new_ family, new connections, like Daryl and Glenn - even herself. The rest turned to less conventional fare, like writing and drawing, exercising their demons through the tip of a pen or the broad stroke of a paint brush against canvas. She'd seen Henry do magical things with just a chunk of charcoal and a blank wall. Therapy, Hershel had called it.

She turned, catching the flash of a stuffed animal peeking out from the sleeping bag tucked behind the wheel well, protected and painstakingly arranged under the covers with the amount of care only a child could rightfully muster.

Everyone had something,  _someone._ Like she'd said before,  _just_ surviving wasn't enough – not anymore. You had to make sense of it, come to peace with it. That was the reality they faced, the cold hard truth that chased you into your dreams. You had to be strong, or else the world would eat you alive. But that didn't stop her from questioning it though, now more than ever.

_What was she surviving for now?_

She shook her head, angry.

The little voice inside her head, the one place that Ed's ghost still lingered, just laughed.

She let her gaze roam freely, taking in the layout of the bus with a curious eye. The cooking area wasn't well stocked; there was a spice rack, condiments, a few empty cans of baked beans and pineapple slices, but other than that,  _nothing._ Perhaps the people who lived here were off doing exactly what she was doing, stocking up. Given the evidence, she knew better. But for now, she was content to ignore it.

There was a potted plant set up in a box below one of the windows near the stove, all drooping stalks that had long overgrown the confines of the cheap ceramic. It wasn't until she got closer that she recognized it, basil. She smiled as she plucked off a leaf, tucking it under her tongue as the flavour burst across her taste buds. There was nothing better than fresh basil.

When she'd been growing up, her mama had always kept a pot of it on the kitchen window. And when she'd finally left home, her mother had presented her with one of her very own, painstakingly re-potted from the very same plant. Ed had never much liked basil and frankly, she was glad of it. It was one of the few things in that old house that had ever managed to put a smile on her face.

There were pictures on the walls, taped up above the stove along the inside of the bus, playful crayon renderings of dogs, cats and smiling suns, of three stick figures holding hands. There were also drawings of other things, darker things, but they were few, half hidden under happy faces and riotous colors. The back of her eyes burned with unshed tears.

They'd made this place their own in every way that mattered. This wasn't just a vehicle or place to hole up in, it was a  _home._

It was what she'd always liked about Dale's old RV. It'd never really been about the tiny kitchenette or the toilet (though that had certainly helped) but more about the atmosphere. It had provided a semblance of normalcy, a hint of permanence in a world that offered anything but.

She shifted in place, arms crossing underneath her breast as a blanket of discomfort washed over her, suddenly painfully aware that every breath she took here was a violation. The wrongness of it was staggering. She was the trespasser here, the invader. And despite the tightness building in her chest, she couldn't help but marvel at it.

It had been a long time since she'd felt this way. She'd spent so long going through other people's lives, rifling through their homes, their vehicles, backpacks and suitcases that she'd become numb to it. She'd been the sole witness to a hundred final moments; she'd inadvertently read peoples' last thoughts, she'd stumbled across love notes from regretful husbands and hopeful wives, messages scribbled on walls from children, parents, friends and lovers. She'd seen acts of cowardice, bravery, and love. She'd discovered wedding dresses carefully pressed and tucked away in back closets and Christmas gifts hidden in attic crawl spaces. And yet, now, it was  _this_ , of all things, that was getting under her skin.

And honestly she didn't know if this feeling, the one tightening in her chest and trickling down her spine like a winter chill, was a good thing or a bad thing.

It wasn't long after that she rabbited, half wondering if the pressure on her back were from the eyes of the owner or just her own guilty conscious.

It took another two and a half days for her to work up the nerve to fill the old sedan with everything she'd managed to gather over the past week. And another hour or so of idling - waiting for some sign that the people were going to return before she finally pulled up beside the bus.

Her heart was in her throat the entire time as she quickly lowered her things in through the emergency hatch, almost worried now that someone  _would_ just magically show up. She all but threw herself into the driver's seat, not sure what to think when she realized that the keys were already in the ignition.

She burnt rubber, unused to such a massive vehicle as she did u-turn back onto the highway, letting the reinforced bumper nudge the sides of overturned trucks and cars firmly out of the way, angling the bus deeper into Macon county, figuring a mobile home was shelter enough for as long as the gas tank would last her.

She didn't look back.


	8. Chapter 8

It quickly became apparent that Macon was less picked over for a reason. There were no military barricades, no sandbag moats or hurricane-style x's taped over the windows of important buildings.  _Nothing._ There were no signs of a city or even a county-wide evacuation; in fact, all the efforts to safe guard the populace seemed to be local.

She made the mistake of driving by the central Macon police station on the third day. She'd nearly stripped the gears when she'd yanked back on the clutch and hit the gas, slamming down the nearest exit and swerving back onto the interstate as what seemed like half the god damned city stumbled after her.

It seemed like the local authorities had chosen to gather everyone together into so called 'safe zones' early on, relying on perimeter fences and strength in numbers when everything had gone downhill. Unfortunately, that just meant that when the infection had spread, there had been nowhere left to run. The reason why Macon was barely touched was that by the time the shit hit the fan, there was barely anyone left to do the scavenging.

She'd broken into Macon's second precinct on the fourth day and managed to find some paperwork relating to what had gone wrong. It seemed as though, early on, there had been some trouble with people using personal firearms. There had been a few accidents – some arrests. In the end, they'd 'solved' matters by relieving every one of their weapons, permits or not.  _Martial Law and all that._

And considering the amount of dead still wandering around the inner city, it was little wonder. When the infection had spread, people had been trapped – helpless – with no easy means of defending themselves. The only people carrying were the officers and deputies, and they had been some of the  _first_ to turn.

But unlike in Atlanta, there had been no one left to cull the worst of the herds.

Macon was a death-trap.

But she had nowhere else to go.

She started parking the bus in the brush and going out on foot, hot wiring cars whenever she was able. She tried the outlying police stations first, but the gun lockers were empty. She found a handful of bullets hidden in a mint tin in one of the receptionist's desks, and a spray can of mace in another, but other than that,  _nothing._

Where had all the confiscated weapons gone?

She followed the end of the paper trail to a dead end at the central administration office, or the Southern Trust building as it was more locally known. It was stupid. She knew that. She was chasin' ghosts and Daryl would have had her hide for it. But Daryl wasn't here. She was on her own.

She got fixated on it, the idea of a stockpile. Enough weapons that she'd never have to worry about ammo again. That the others would never have to fear being low, they could deal with the walkers at the fences and anyone else stupid enough to try and take away what they'd built. She dreamt of going home.

_But whenever she took herself to task for it, she heard Daryl's voice rather than her own. And honestly, that didn't exactly help matters._

She barely made it out of the Southern Trust alive.

She tried to tell herself later, as she examined the gash in her thigh, hissing through her teeth as she'd used a q-tip to daub the antiseptic, that the spare Glock, full clip and wad of papers she'd found regarding the last known whereabouts of the confiscated weapons had been worth it.

But in the morning, when she'd been too sore to move, too sore to drag her sorry ass up through the emergency hatch to empty the bucket she used as a toilet, she'd certainly been forced to wonder.

She spent the day reading over what she'd managed collect so far, her injured leg propped up on one of the boxes of papers she hadn't had the heart to throw away yet. It seemed as though the officials in charge of the collection had first stored them in their respective precincts – figuring that once things died down and the National Guard arrived, they could hand them back and carry on with just fortifying the town. Only the National Guard had never come. They were supposed to have sent a mobile unit from Atlanta. But they never arrived and by the time they realized they were nearly half a week late, there was no one left on the other end to answer their calls.

From there, after a badly organized attempt by a group of civilians to reclaim their property at one of the outlying sheriff stations, someone from Central Administration had decided to organize a pick-up. The plan had been to take them to a secure location and redistribute them as necessary. But where the hell they'd been transported after Central Administration was the only part of the puzzle she was actually missing. Because the stack of handwritten papers ended before the last sentence even closed. Like the final page of the missive was missing – or worse, had never been finished. Honestly, she didn't know which was worse.

She didn't leave the bus that day or the next.

In fact, she felt like death warmed up.

The cut on her thigh radiated heat. She changed the dressing and used a pair of tweezers to pick glass shards out of her skin. But it didn't help. Her skin felt clammy when she woke up halfway through the night on the second day, shaking out a handful of pills in an effort to hardline the fever. She forced herself to drink half a bottle of water. It went down like oil, slicking all the way down to her gullet as she dry-heaved into the bucket she used as a bed-pan.

The smell alone was enough to do it. She re-opened the wound on her thigh as she vomited, leaning up against one of the blanket-covered windows as she emptied what little she had in her stomach into the bin. She wiped her lips with the back of her hand, trembling as her entire form quivered, suddenly cold despite the hot flash that was steadily working its way down the length of her spine.

She coughed, spitting up a mouthful of phlegm, refusing to let herself look too closely as she remembered the way red had speckled across Karen's palm just before she'd-

_She wanted to go home._


	9. Chapter 9

She thrashed herself awake sometime later; sweat beading on her forehead in a way that had nothing to do with the mid-day sun streaming through a gap in the curtains. She panted, kicking off the blankets with her good leg. Her eyes took longer to focus than they should have.

_The wound is infected, could be blood poisoning, treat with-_

She fumbled beside her, fingers closing around the bottle of water with enough force to make the plastic pop. She shook out two more pills, washing them down with the rest of the water before slumping against the pillows.  _She had to get this fever down._  Her chest fluttered with exertion, feeling weak and unsteady just from the effort it had taken to sit up – the gravity of her situation finally sinking in. She was going to need something stronger than an anti-inflammatory.

She blinked, belatedly, lashes caked with sleep.  _Antibiotics._

She stretched, trying not to jar her leg as she managed to hook a finger around the strap of her pack, pulling it over. She fished out the bottle, thankful she'd had the foresight to think ahead. She choked down double the recommended dose and let her eyes close.  _God, she was tired._

She'd been doing so well. She'd done what she told herself she'd do when she'd turned her back on the man she'd trusted,  _respected_ , loved and swung herself into the driver's seat of that car back in suburbia. She'd survived. Hell, she'd done  _more_ than just survive. She'd prospered, staked a claim on behalf of her own existence. She'd been strong. She  _was_ strong.

She supposed this was what happened when she got uppity. She could admit it, even now, with the papers strewn around her, that she'd gotten a bit obsessed – the idea of a stockpile of weapons wasn't just an attractive prospect, these days it was necessary. She was low on ammo, but more to the point, so were the others. They'd only managed to replenish what they'd used in their last confrontation with the Governor over the winter months, not gain. They were woefully under stocked, unprepared, and only those on the council knew the truth of it.

Besides that, she wasn't ashamed to admit that returning with a bus load of supplies and weapons was a damn good way to make an entrance.

She bit her lip.  _Who was she kidding?_  She couldn't go back. Rick had made that much clear. If she went back now that would only cause problems, distract everyone from the real threat. They had a block full of sick people, a potential pandemic. She wasn't selfish enough to distract them from that, with in-fighting and more conflict. Not matter how much she wanted to.

She nibbled on a cracker, not exactly hungry but needing the distraction. Somewhere, practically within spitting distance, there was a treasure trove of weapons and ammo. She had written proof of that much. There were two detachments she hadn't tried yet; the Southern Trust had been, by her estimation, the least dangerous of the remaining three.

She knew she should just drop it, especially after everything that had happened. She'd been lucky, lucky that she'd been on the ground floor when she'd shot out that window and thrown herself out of it. She'd barely had time to suck air back into her bruised lungs as she'd rolled, staggering to her feet, every inch of her throbbing as a group of walkers, nearly two dozen strong, followed her out onto the street. But she couldn't. Maybe she didn't want to.

She pressed the side of her canteen against her burning forehead, willing clarity to return even as the chilled metal made her shiver violently. She worried the corner of another saltine, tongue soaking up the salt with a relish her aching head certainly didn't feel.

_What was it they said about feeding fevers? Or was it starving them? She couldn't remember._

Justifying the desire to continue her search was harder than she thought it would be. It wasn't pride driving her, at least not completely. She had due cause, just like before, she  _knew_  it was right. They needed those weapons.  _She needed them._ So far, all she'd failed on was the follow through.

She pulled one of the sleeping bags up to her chin, considering. A ray of weak afternoon sun spread across her lap, turning the material translucent and glittery as the lump that contained her elevated leg rose out of the nest of blankets. It looked about as awkward as she felt.

Maybe she was so set on this because deep down, she couldn't help but think that looking for the weapons, regardless of the risk, was something  _Daryl_ would do, Rick too - if they were in her situation. Then again, maybe she was just trying to prove a point. Not just to the others, to Rick and Ed - but to  _herself_  as well.

Or maybe she'd think it through again later, you know, when she  _wasn't_ borderline delirious, and change her mind.  _Maybe._

She dozed, nodding on and off throughout the afternoon. She woke up periodically, lethargic but aware as she checked her pulse and drank a bit of water. She didn't know if it was the fever or the fact that she couldn't remember the last time she'd slept the day away, but for the first time since Rick left her, her dreams were gentle.

_She couldn't help but feel it was a nice change._

She was drowsing, one hand loose around the cool metal of her canteen, the other worrying the edges of the bandage she'd applied a few hours earlier, when a sound from outside startled her.

She jerked upright, senses clouded, confused as the remnants of sleep dissipated like mist in the morning. She thumbed the snap of her holster, spine rigid, on edge. Her lungs burned, but she didn't dare suck in a breath, half convinced that one sound, no matter how light, would alert whatever was out there.

Somewhere outside, shocking and terrifyingly close, a car door slammed.

Her blood ran cold.


	10. Chapter 10

"This is a god damned waste of time," a voice growled, male, but unfamiliar and gruff. It was enough to send her hopes plummeting in less than two seconds flat. The man sounded ticked off and angry as heavy boot heels dug deep in the loose gravel. His words were punctured by another slam as an engine, well maintained enough that she hadn't heard it when they'd pulled in, cut off in mid-purr.

"Fuck you, Fornell! You and I both know this rig wasn't here when we came through last week. I'm positive of that!" another voice answered, lighter, less rounded and trying far too hard.

There was a screech of rusty hinges, the slight impact of vehicles shocks, then-

"Why do we even  _care_  anyway?" a woman's voice asked, only a few octaves away from being shrill as the sound of footsteps, light and far more delicate, approached the side of the bus.

She bit her lip, willing the woman to stop as the sound of long nails rasped across the side panel, just inches away from where she was resting. She shivered at the sound,  _nails on a chalkboard._

"The boss has a whole mess of SUVs with tripped out gadgets and bumper decorations, why waste time on a hunk of junk like this?" the woman continued, tone practically drowning in derision as she tapped against the window, startling in its sudden closeness.

"The lady has a point," the first voice returned.  _Fornell,_  she reminded herself, from somewhere near the reinforced door at the front of the bus.

"I wouldn't be surprised if she's had _every_  man's god damned _point_  since god damned  _winter_ ," the second man muttered, sounding mulish and just bitter enough that a chuckle rose up in the back of her throat.

The crisp sound of an open palm meeting unprotected flesh echoed – followed by the sound of rakish laugher as the man's friends called him out for being a sore loser.

She shifted, carefully easing her Glock out of its holster as they argued amongst themselves. She considered her options, carefully lifting herself up into a sitting position, mindful of her leg as the bindings pulled taut around the cut. The main door was locked, protected by at least a layer of reinforced steel and soldered metal. The windows were supposed to be shatter proof; they popped out on latches from the inside in case of a roll over. They could shoot through them, but it would take more than a clip from a regular pistol to bring them down in pieces. The driver's door was the weakest point, locked, but lightly reinforced. Then, of course, there was the emergency hatch. The hatch was accessible both ways, inside  _and_  out.

_Shit._

She flicked off the safety, breathing in through her nose. Her finger tightened around the trigger. … _Easy does it. Wait. You don't know what they're going to do. They might even leave. Let them decide. Don't show your cards until you have to._ _Just wait…_

"Come on then," the woman cut in, interrupting the others as the agreement reached its peak. "Let's get this over with. Drake? You first," she hummed salaciously, voice promising violence under a thin layer of velvet.

"What? No way! It's Fornell's turn!" the second man complained, voice pitching loud enough that she winced. The echo carried. The rest stop was in full view of the highway, were they that confident in themselves that they'd risk-

"I didn't ask Fornell, you whiny little _bitch_ , this is  _your_  party, remember?" the woman grated, tone icy as she crunched through the gravel, so close that she could actually _hear_  the gravel rasping across the bottom of her soles.

"Look lady, just because you're the boss's favourite doesn't mean you can just-"

"Jesus, Drake! While we're young, dude!" Fornell groaned, slapping his hand against something metallic and hollow – the hood of a car as the woman's voice, borderline nasal, echoed her agreement.

She inched her way across the floor as footsteps approached the main door, dragging her injured leg as she scuttled off the pile of blankets, trying to find a good position as she neared one of the windows.  _If she could just see what was happening…_

The second man, Drake, yanked on the handle, pulling ineffectively as the action sent tremors through the side of the vehicle, making the shocks groan at the force. And she used it, moving in time as she dragged herself to the middle window, hoping the action would mask the noise of her movements as the man cursed.

"Locked," he whined.

"No shit," Fornell returned, pausing to spit before he continued. "Try the other one." A muscle ticked in her cheek at the sound, chewing tobacco. Thankfully, Ed had always preferred cigarettes. She'd considered it the lesser of two evils and had invested in a steam cleaner.

The sound footsteps neared the front of the bus. But she paid the other man no mind. Instead, she peeked around the edge of the curtain, blinking at the light as her eyes slowly adjusted. There  _were_ only three of them, two men and a woman, just as their voice's had indicated.

Fornell, the man who'd spoke first, was as burly and rough as he'd sounded, boasting a barrel chest and thickly corded forearms. The man had a Mossberg cradled in his grip, with silver-shot temples barely visible under a worn Budweiser cap. He was staring off towards the front of the bus, braced up against the hood of a reinforced SUV, presumably where the other man, Drake, was poking around.

And as if on cue, the bus shook again, she caught a flash of a profile when the blanket covering the driver's side window fluttered, swaying with the movement. All she got was a glimpse of an angular nose, spiked brown hair and a reedy-looking chest.

"Can you see in?" the woman asked, appearing from the shadow of the bus, so close she could have reached out and touched, as a wave of strawberry blond hair caught in the afternoon glare.

The blonde had her back to her, hands posed, unimpressed at her hips. She had a Glock strapped to each hip and a machete and holster arranged snugly in the small of her back. The woman's figure was lithe, but not young, mature enough to have earned the title, but far enough in denial that it didn't matter.

"Nope, they've blacked out the windows from the inside, can't see shit," the reedy-looking man replied, coming back around the bus with a bored look and a swagger that looked a bit too confident for the person behind it.

The woman snorted, tossing back her hair, "Well,  _Sherlock_ , what do you propose?" she asked slyly, baiting.

"Dude, this shit is from  _Atlanta._  This is a god damned city bus," Fornell growled, kicking at the back wheel well as he inspected the advertisements peeling off the sides. "Why the hell would we be interested in a fuckin' city bus anyway?"

"You're missin' the point, dumbass. How the hell did it get out here anyway? Atlanta is what? Three hundred? Four hundred miles from here?" Drake spat, ire up as he thumped his fist along the side. "Think they were just makin' a pit stop?"

"Hey, you watch 'yer tongue boy. I've had it just about up to here with your-"

"Enough!" the woman hollered, tone loud enough to send echoes rippling through the still air. But what _really_  surprised her was when the two men automatically quieted. "Just break into the god damned thing so we can all go home," the woman sighed. "I don't know about you, but I certainly don't want to be hearing about the 'one that got away' for the next fifty years."

The little one, Drake, grinned nastily, tossing Fornell a one fingered salute as he hurried over to the SUV, pulling out a crowbar and a sledge hammer.

"Pick your pleasure,  _grandpa_ ," Drake offered, expression anything but friendly as Fornell glared down at him, staring at him the same way she imagined a cat did to an unsuspecting mouse – just waiting for the right time to strike. Drake didn't have a clue either; it was that or he was too high on himself to care. The kid was on borrowed time and everyone save for himself seemed to be aware of it.

Fornell hefted the sledge hammer like a baseball bat, testing the weight of it in his hand as he left his Mossberg on the hood of the SUV. "Let's get this over with," he grunted, leading the way around the bus towards the driver's side door.

She cursed under her breath. She needed to do something, to move, act,  _now._

 _Options,_  she needed options.

Should she run? Try and take off in the bus before they managed to force their way inside? Or did she stay, confront them? Neither option was particularly appetizing. They both pretty much sucked, actually. But that was all she had. If she ran, taking the bus down the interstate, and they decided to chase her, well, it was pretty much curtains. The bus turned like a semi-truck jack-knifing on black ice and at the best of times she could barely keep it in one lane. The SUV was faster, smaller and far more manoeuvrable. Not to mention there were three of them and one of her, she could drive  _and_ shoot, at least not for long.

_No._

She could hear Daryl, all low tones and that subtle rasping purr in the back of her mind as an idea formed. She thought quickly, pulling herself across the floor as she grabbed the spare Glock and her last box of ammo. Her injured leg throbbed dully, manageable but tender. She half-hobbled over to the ladder, trying to steady herself as her bad leg dragged.

If she could just get up to the emergency hatch she'd have the high ground, she could deal with the three of them if she had to, if they gave her no choice. She scrambled up the ladder, biting her lip as her free arm trembled, willing the rusty metal to not creak as she eased herself up another step.

_Easy does it, just one more-_

The box of ammo fell, sliding right out of the crook of her arm and slamming against the floor of the bus with a deafening clang. The sides split open on impact, sending nine millimetre shells spilling out in every direction, pinging and clattering down the aisle as she watched her plan curl into flame and ash around her.

She froze, eyes closing for a split second as the footsteps outside skidded to a stop and a trio of muffled yelps and half-formed curses whipped out into the silence.

_Shit._


	11. Chapter 11

"What the fuck!" Drake bleated, offensively loud as Fornell jerked backwards, snagging the Mossberg from the hood of the SUV as he went. "There's something fuckin'  _in_ there!"

"Form up!" Fornell barked, ducking behind the SUV as Drake and the blonde dove for cover. The dull sound of loose gravel grating across frayed fabric and worn boot heels put her teeth on edge.

She used the moment to stuff a handful of shells into her sweater pocket, holstering her spare and aiming through a gap in the curtains, tunnelling down the sight until all she could see was the brim of Fornell's baseball cap poking up from over the SUV. A thought, stray and half-formed, rose up in the back of her mind. She could end this now, from this range her shot would probably go right through the glass. It was shatter proof, no fuss, no muss.

"If there's anyone in there, you best come on out now!" Fornell shouted.

She didn't say a word. Hell, she barely even moved. She remained frozen, halfway up the ladder, bad leg  _screaming_.

"Yeah! We've got ya' surrounded," Drake piped up, only to let go of a yelp a few seconds later when the sound of a boot heel whacking against unprotected flesh carried in the afternoon breeze.

Her nails bit into the meat of her palms. If she spoke now she'd reduce the element of surprise. She would tell them by proxy, by the lack of another voice, that she was alone, a woman alone on the road – well, you know the rest. But on the other hand, what if they weren't a threat? Sure they were rough around the edges, militaristic, suspect simply because they were strangers, but what if they were doing the same thing she was? Scouting for supplies, heading onto the next town, the next place?  _Surviving?_

There was no right answer.

She frowned, uncertain. Rick, Daryl, even Shane had made these sorts of decisions every day. How had they known it would be the right call? How had they remained so confident? So in control? How had they looked so sure, when in reality, their guts had probably been  _roiling_?

To say she had a new appreciation for their position was an  _understatement_.

Her mind was a jumble of conflicting loyalties, ideas, instincts and drives. One part screamed for her to shoot, to just squeeze down on the trigger, certain they were a threat. While the other, more subtle, more _rational_  part of her, argued against it.

"…Maybe it's a biter," Drake drawled, tone jumpy but dripping with false bravado as the  _click-click-click_  of someone reloading carried in the still air.

She shook her head, the scales tipping in the back of her mind. The decision was practically made for her. She had no right to shoot first, not in her mind. She already had more on her conscience than she could handle. She had to be  _sure._ In spite of appearances, they hadn't done anything wrong, not by her. Who was she to pass that kind of judgement?

_She wasn't Rick. She'd never-_

"Will you  _shut up_!?" the woman whispered, all snarling upper lip and the flash of a gun barrel half hidden in her right palm. She tried not to tense, to make any more noise than necessary when the woman's head peeked over the hood, trying to suss her out before disappearing again.

Her throat tightened, chest vice-like as she cleared her throat. She remained where she was, halfway up the ladder, gun trained on the hood of the SUV as she spoke loudly enough to be heard.

"If it's all the same to you, considering the direction your guns are pointing, I'm just fine staying put, thank you," she remarked, tongue thick in her mouth as she forced the words out. Still, she was surprised when they came out level, a solid dead calm.

The silence that followed was stilted, hushed,  _stale._

"Holy shi-" Drake muttered, the words barely audible as the blonde shushed him. From her vantage point halfway up the ladder she caught sight of both Fornell and the woman's heads coming together – the muffled whispers carried but she couldn't make out the words. Uncertainty and fear coiled deep in the pit of her belly.

It was a handful of beats before Fornell broke the silence, accent typical for the Deep South as he raised his head above the hood, showing one hand up as a gesture of goodwill. "We don't mean any harm. We're just out here, same as you. Survivin'. We got people to feed is all."

Her brow furrowed when she caught sight of the blonde inching her way underneath the carriage of the SUV. She adjusted her aim through the window, switching between the woman and Fornell as her attention grew divided.

"We don't mean no disrespect, but we figured this rig was abandoned." Fornell continued, raising himself up another few inches as she wavered on the ladder. His other hand was still behind the SUV. She would have bet all of her and Ed's life savings that despite appearances, it was still holding onto the stock of the Mossberg.

_It would be what she would do._

"Well, it's not," she managed, conviction entering her tone as the conversation evolved, ignoring the sting from her bad leg as she shifted. "This is our home," she improvised, using what she'd read of the previous owner's papers to fill in the blanks. "We've been on the road since Atlanta fell."

"Atlanta, huh?" Fornell echoed, tone bland, yet not sarcastic as he tipped the brim of his hat towards her, "that's some tough shit. Not many people made it out. Especially on the buses, poor bastards got the brunt of it when Atlanta fell. Most of them weren't even clear of the barricades when they started firebombing the city."

"We were lucky," she returned, keeping it simple as the barrel of the blonde's gun glinted.

" _We?_  You're not all alone in there, darling?" Fornell asked, spitting a mouthful of dank liquid off to the side as he switched a wad of chewing tobacco to the other cheek.

"No." She affirmed, trying to force conviction into her words, as she caught sight of Drake edging around the SUV, clearly trying to pin-point her location. She paused in mid-breath as inspiration suddenly struck.

"My-my husband has the sickness, the fever that's been going around," she added, "I've been exposed. You don't want to get much closer than you are," she advised, willing them to just pack up and take the bait as she inched her way up to the emergency hatch, free hand clutching onto the handle as she slowly eased it open.

"Is that so?" Fornell drawled. "I don't know nothin' about a fever, haven't heard a peep about it in fact. Why don't you and your husband come out here, tell us all about it, might interest our people and all."

The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. She opened her mouth to reply, to say something,  _anything_. But even she knew she was probably just delaying the inevitable.

"I don't think you understand, this fever is different, it isn't like anything I've ever seen before. It's fast, it burns you out and you bleed, from  _everywhere_. The eyes… There were more of us, they didn't make it," she replied, desperate, letting a hint of it enter her tone for effect as Drake looked back at Fornell, questioning.

She bit her lip as the seal around the hatch  _whooshed_ , easing it open incrementally as she balanced on her good leg, forcing herself to steady as she inched the hatch open enough to slide her spare Glock up onto the roof and off to the side, ready to grab the moment she needed it.

"Be that as it may, I still think you and your old man should come out and have a talk about this, it's only friendly after all," Fornell insisted.

She sucked in a breath, heart pulsing raggedly, unsteady.  _Please, just go away._

"I can speak to you from here, but my husband is barely conscious, he's too heavy to move," she responded, just shy of biting as her feelings got the better of her. She knew what he was doing. He was trying to suss out if she was alone or not, figuring she'd be easy pickings if it was just her in there. As far as he knew, she was the only thing standing between them and a cargo full of food and fuel.

_People had certainly killed for less._

_Don't make me do this._

Fornell straightened, spine clicking as his reached his full height, over confident and bold as he stared straight ahead, gaze off by about half a meter as she glared back through the gap in the curtains. A smug grin curled lazily around the curve of his lips as he took a step around the SUV. He kept one hand up, but the other still hidden behind the headlights. It reminded her so much of Ed that her aim actually wavered.

She could see the tip of his Mossberg skimming across the ground beside the treads. The sound was metallic and hollow, as inconspicuous as anything, yet to her, it echoed out as clear as a death knell.

_So be it._


	12. Chapter 12

"You know what I think?" Fornell began, smug grin turning feral and unkind as it spread across his hard-lined features. "I think you're all alone in there with a nice little pile of goodies that you intend to keep all for yourself."

Every muscle was tense, humming with energy. She felt, primed,  _ready_ , with adrenaline overtaking fear as Daryl's voice rose in the back of her mind. Suddenly, she remembered a moment during the summer, before the prison. They'd been on their own, scavenging, trying to siphon gas from a line of abandoned cars that had gotten stuck in gridlock on an exit ramp outside of –  _somewhere_  - she doubted she'd ever actually known the name of the town to begin with.

" _Seven against two, I like those odds,"_  he'd sassed, a small smile flashing across his face as he handed her a rifle. But there had been a frown hiding between his brows as he squinted into the high noon, half blinded by the sun glinting off warped metal hoods and quietly rusting wrecks. It was an expression she could easily read, something that dwelled halfway between anger and that jumpy sort of uncertainty that comes part and parcel with the way she'd fitted herself up against his spine – having his back just as surely as he had hers as walkers closed in from all sides.

The walkers were coming up the steep slope beside the median, stumbling, falling, climbing over each other, clawing at the loose dirt. The rest were trickling in through the mess of cars wrecked on either side of the exit. They must have been too loud; they'd gotten over confident,  _bold_ , heat-drunk on a perfect summer's day. They'd dealt with worse. But never with so few to fight back. She remembered the feeling of him, pressed up against her back, warm and hunched over as she'd instinctively mimicked his posture.

" _Just another day in paradise,"_  she'd replied, catching his eye and returning his smile ten-fold as they'd shared a moment behind the cover of the overturned truck. They'd been barely level with the wheel wells as they peeked over the twisted metal, flicking the safety off their rifles smoothly, almost in sync as the first of the walkers growled, slamming up against the side of the truck – rotted and reaching – as they opened fire.

She remembered what it'd felt like to face death and  _not_ be afraid.

"Yeah, didn't your momma ever teach you how to share?" Drake piped up, inadvertently giving away his position as he started edging towards the back of the bus.  _Idiot._ She shook herself, the divide between reality and memory suddenly feeling a bit more than thin.

The blonde woman had taken up a position by the rear wheel, her thin torso scrunched into the gap underneath the carriage. But her gun was aimed towards the window  _next_ to her.  _They still hadn't pin-pointed her position._  She grinned, the expression mirthless, all pointed teeth and a grimace in place of a smile as she expelled a shaky breath.

_People always under estimated her…_

"You know, we can still work this out, our place could always use more hands. We've got a good place, big, food, shelter, medical care if you need it. We all pull our weight, we all chip in. I reckon you'd make a good impression to the boss if you handed over your cargo and came home with us," Fornell offered, seeming to actually make an effort at sincerity as he spat another mouthful of tobacco juice off to the side.

The sound practically made her skin crawl.

"We got a lot of kids, orphans than need a steady hand, motherin' if ya' catch my drift," the man added, seeming to view this as some sort of incentive - something he was  _sure_  would catch her attention. Her resolve hardened, closing off as the implication behind the man's words suddenly occurred to her.

How many people had they reeled in this way? How many people had had their vulnerabilities played upon? How many innocents had been drawn in by the promise of a warm meal and a chance to have a purpose again? To belong? To regain something of what they'd lost when everything had fallen apart?

These people weren't just scavengers, they were _predators_.

She adjusted her aim, switching between the three of them, before she decided to play along, stall for time. If she could just get the smaller one, Drake, to move back beside the SUV-

"You'd do that?" she queried, softening her voice and adding a tremor for good measure, doing her best to play the part. God knows she'd had more than enough practice over the years.

"You'd take us in? Even though we're sick? We might be contagious. We don't want any trouble. We just need some time, something to help us get through this," she simpered, fighting the urge to lay it on thick as a strange sort of euphoria washed over her.

_Jesus, she was delirious - adrenaline drunk, still sick, or something, maybe both. She felt invincible._

Drake and Fornell fell for it, easy as anything. It was the woman she wasn't sure about.

"Where is this place?" she asked, voice going thready around the edges, coaxing a lazy smile out of Fornell as his posture started to relax – over confident. "Can we talk to your leader? Make sure he'll take us in?"

"Why don't you and your husband come on out and we'll talk about it?" Fornell countered. "We're all friendly here," he assured, tone passive but hard-lined underneath to let people know he meant business.

She heard a scuffle, seeing movement under the SUV, a puff of dirt-speckled air, like the woman underneath was trying to get Fornell's attention.

"Alright!" she blurted, pushing a hint of relief into her voice, as she tried to keep the man's eyes on her.

"We'll come out the front," she added, lips caught between her teeth as Drake perked up, scuttling a bit closer towards the SUV, just like she'd been hoping - already edging towards the reinforced front door, planning to catch her unaware.

Her grip tightened around the cool metal of her Glock. Hands clammy against the lip of the emergency hatch as she steadied herself, listening to the unsteady  _thrum-thrum_ of her heart as the ball of fear and anger curled up tight in the pit of her belly.

_Just another day in paradise…_


	13. Chapter 13

Despite the build-up, it was all over relatively quickly. In fact, it felt wrong. Perhaps she would have felt better if her plan  _hadn't_  worked so well. Perhaps she wouldn't have. She wasn't sure which was worse.

She'd popped the emergency hatch and caught Drake before he could look up, taking him down with an off center shot to the neck, ladder swaying underneath her. He fell with a gurgle, a bright splash of arterial spray and at least half a dozen bullets, finger tightening on the trigger as he fell.

The spray of bullets spat across the gravel, tossing up pulverized rock-dust and dirt as a cloud of dusky-brown soil filtered through the air. It provided cover as Fornell whirled, the toe of his boot kicking up the barrel of the Mossberg as he steadied himself against the hood of the car, aiming, just before her bullet drilled a hole right through the center of his forehead. It clipped off a section of scalp, splattering across the windshield as his hat flew off on impact.

She saw Ed looking back at her as the man fell, a sickening mixture of incomprehension and surprise flickering across his face before he disappeared behind the SUV. It was the same look she'd imagined on Ed more than once, the second before snapping teeth and tearing fingers had ripped into his skin.

Before she could get off another shot the woman sent a bullet whinging through the plexy-glass, then another and another. The shots were off-center - panicked, but close as she fell down the ladder, missing the last two rungs when her leg gave out underneath her. She crawled across the center aisle, bandage catching on the treads, unravelling behind her. Another bullet blew through the window behind her, blasting a neat hole through the shatter-proof glass as she pulled herself forward by her elbows.

She peeked around the edge of one of the curtains, ducking automatically as the blonde fired – wasting bullets. She quickly realized that from her position under the SUV the woman couldn't reach her, the angle was all wrong. Instead she was aiming low, trying to take her out with a shot to the torso or legs as the flash of a green vest and the muzzle of her weapon peeked out behind one of the rear wheels.

_The woman was firing blind._

She used it to her advantage when she reached the driver's side door, tumbling out onto the loose asphalt, her injured leg an ember of searing pain and cracking flesh.

She returned fire, rolling underneath the bus before the woman could make her. She took out the closest tire as the woman yelled, screaming some sort of obscenity when the second shot took out the other tire, partially trapping the blonde underneath when the undercarriage suddenly dropped a good four inches.

She caught a scuffle of movement underneath the SUV, flinching as a bullet ripped through the side of the bus not half a meter from her right side. The next shot ricocheted, hitting the reinforced bumper before slamming backwards, pinging through the dirt near Drake's boot.

She aimed, forcing herself to calm,  _to focus_ , trying to remember everything Rick and Daryl had taught her as she breathed out through her nose. Another bullet screamed through the air, closer this time, enough that she swore she felt the wind. Her finger tightened on the trigger, but didn't fire, not yet.

In the back of her head, Daryl growled.  _Wait for it._

When she'd first learned how to handle a weapon, Rick had told her something that'd stuck. The truth was, once you'd got the whole 'point and shoot' part down, killing a walker was easy. They were less challenging then hunting game, with all the drives of an animal, but none of the practice. They had no concept of self-preservation, no fear response. They didn't run when outnumbered or duck when they saw a weapon.

Essentially, they were big, dumb, walking targets.

Killing a person, on the other hand, was different. You were taking a life. There was no way to get around that. When you pulled the trigger you had to mean it. You had to be sure. Either way it stuck with you forever. Surviving had its own cost, an invisible levy that was taxed on the mind and soul. Anyone who said different was either biased or selling something.

But more to the point, shooting a person was different in another way. You couldn't just point and shoot, you had to think. You had to learn to track, to understand behaviour and anticipate your target's movements. You had to be able to put yourself in  _their_  place and ask yourself how  _they'd_  kill  _you_. It was disconcerting, but she was getting used to it.

Her aim and stance were second nature by now. Her instincts? Improving every day. It seemed like half a lifetime since she'd stood on top of the RV, baulking at the very idea of even _holding_  a rifle. She'd never liked guns. She'd hated the fact that Ed had even kept them in the house. Early on, before she'd been pregnant with Sophia, moving the gun safe into the garage had been the one thing she'd insisted upon. She'd never seen the need for guns, especially in the spare bedroom. After all, people seemed to kill each other just fine without them.

But things had changed since then. Or maybe she had.  _Probably both_.

She ignored the fourth bullet, then the fifth, focusing on the small gap of light that stood out between the dirt and the undercarriage. The SUV was angled, off-center, enough that someone, if they were skinny enough, could still be partially trapped underneath.

She blinked. An off-kilter flash of light skimmed across the edge of her vision. Her finger slammed down on the trigger. The cut-off cry and sudden silence told her she'd met her mark.

She wavered unsteadily to her feet, bad leg refusing to hold her weight. A clammy sweat rolled down from her temples as she made her way around the front of the bus, holding onto the side for support, cautious as the unsteady rasp of something breathing echoed in the still air. She kept her gun up, trained on the sliver of light under the SUV.

By the time she limped over, close enough that the woman startled; she'd already managed to drag herself out from underneath. It had been a slow, painful looking slide that'd left deep gouges in the earth, a thin line of red marking the way as the woman bled out across the dirt.

She bit down on the inside of her cheek, forcing herself to harden.

_She had to be strong. Just like before. Just like when she'd-_

She picked up the fallen Mossberg as she passed Fornell's body, the toes of her boots scuffing through the blood-slicked dirt – holstering her pistol as she checked the magazine.  _Half a clip._ She nearly tripped when she rounded on the woman, levelling the weapon as the blonde coughed, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the dirt a split second before she lunged for her gun - an Ithaca 37 light and sturdy.

"Don't."

The woman froze, glaring up at her as she paused, fingers a hair's breadth from the stock of the weapon. The woman's nails were long, lightly sheened with a layer of clear gloss. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd even  _thought_ about nail polish, let alone  _worn_ it.

She hadn't even raised her voice.

"You could have just left," she managed, sucking in an unsteady breath as she leaned against the side of the vehicle, bracing her wounded leg. Her voice was shaky, but the tone was almost conversational, light.  _Fake._  Each word felt worn around the edges, insincere as the woman slowly raised her hands, palms up, surrendering. It was the universal gesture for helplessness, a plea for mercy. But she wasn't fooled and the woman's eyes were anything but kind.

The blonde didn't answer. She remained where she was, glaring through messy bangs and long lashes, staring up at her hatefully, bleeding out quietly across the dry Georgian dust.

Uneven ribbons of red trailed down the woman's thigh, seeping up from a bullet wound that skimmed the line just below her cut-off shorts. There wasn't a lot of blood, not yet at least, but it was steady. Steady enough that it could have nicked her femoral.

But even then her concern was detached. She felt like she'd lost a part of herself to the grey area, that fuzzy, not so black and white place where morality paled and anger festered. She felt. But at the same time, she didn't know exactly  _what_ it was. It would be easier to say she felt nothing. That she felt nothing when she looked at the still forms of Drake and Fornell or at the woman at her feet. But the truth was, that wasn't it. She felt, but she just didn't know how to describe it.

Was this how Rick felt every day? How he coped after losing Shane and Lori? Stuck in the vacuum that existed somewhere between apathy and rage?

She was about to say something else, perhaps something about where the woman's group was situated or why they were out picking off little fish when they both jumped, startled as the woman's radio, half hidden in the in-seam of her vest, crackled.

The radio hissed, loud enough that it had her on point for any sign of walkers, before a man's voice, barely audible through the bad connection, echoed through the afternoon hush.


	14. Chapter 14

"Yo! How's my favourite team doin' today? You're late for your check in by the way. … _Again."_

The woman didn't take her eyes off the barrel of the Mossberg. And she didn't waver, letting the radio crackle and spit, muffling the sound of distant swears that filtered through the connection before it cut off.

"Fornell, you getting this? Lola? Chicka? Com'on people! Let's hear those sweet, dulcet tones, eh?" the voice urged, sing-song near the end before the click of the talk button indicated the man was waiting for a response. The blonde shifted, movements drawing up a puff of dust as her glare faltered, attention split between her and the radio.

"Answer it," she demanded, keeping her gun level with the woman's temple as she leaned down, cautious, unclipping the Glock from her belt, kicking it out of the woman's reach. She did the same with the machete tucked into the holster between her shoulder blades, tossing it behind her as the radio hissed, restless with static. The woman, or  _Lola_ , to her credit, just stared. A sneer was painted clear across her pretty face as she wiped at a bit of blood streaming down from a cut – red and angry on her right cheek.

But the woman reached down all the same, her expression a prism of conflicting emotions as she unclipped the radio and hit the talk button.

"…Hey Nigel, its Lola."

Privately she marveled on it. Ed had always used volume and his fists to get what he wanted, and not necessarily in that order either. Which one was the real power? The ability to beat someone into submission? Or the ability to command it? She hadn't realized it was so complicated – a grey area she'd always assumed was more black and white.

"Well god damn! It's about time, woman! Where the hell have you been all my life!?" the voice admonished, sounding genuinely relieved as a murmur of conversation rose, peaking when the talk button clicked.

"You know how it is. We got tied up. Had to lay low, avoiding the herds," the woman lied, her green eyes glaring daggers, refusing to look away. She wondered if it was supposed to be intimidating. Two years ago it would have been unnerving. Cause for concern, something to avoid – to run from. But now? She barely batted an eye. She'd dealt with crueler people, and faced far more vicious stares. In fact, if evil had a pedigree this woman would be a mongrel.

She bit down on the inside of her cheek until she tasted crimson.  _The Governor on the other hand…_

A thought rose up, shaky and visceral. She sucked in a shuddering breath. She hadn't let herself dwell on it. On the way she'd heard the bullet coming – staggering back just a second too late. Or the way she'd felt the whip of his hair sting across her cheek – dirty blond and already sticky with blood spatter when she'd reached out, instinctively trying to catch him. Axel had been laughing,  _they'd_ been laughing. Neither of them had seen it coming. He'd been sweet – in a rough sort of way, flawed, but genuine.

He'd reminded her of Daryl.

Vaguely she knew she should be ashamed, afraid of the thoughts that were rising up – heady and angry in the back of her mind. But when she forced herself to look down, meeting the woman's stare with an expression that made the blonde quail, she couldn't bring herself to care one way or another.

"Yeah, well, you'd better get gone. We were expecting you guys hours ago," the voice, Nigel, pointed out. "Put Fornell on eh, the boss wants an update."

The glare in the woman's eyes turned into a question. But she just shook her head, finger tightening on the trigger, ready to make good on her threat.

"He's-he's taking a piss. We're leaving the outskirts of Macon now anyway, got a good haul considering the circumstances. We'll be back around-"

"Sundown," she hissed, kicking the woman's boot for emphasis, trying to hide the ragged swallow as Lola's expression turned downright mutinous. The moment was tense. For a long second she thought it was all over, that the woman was just going to blurt it all out, then-

"We'll be back by sundown," Lola gritted, spitting out each word like it was something poisonous, hand tightening around the wound on her thigh until red burbled up, escaping between her fingers.

"Sundown?" the voice repeated, incredulous, "That's too close to curfew, com'on doll-face, you know the rules."

"It's unavoidable this time," Lola returned, annoyed now. Her vicious expression was wavering, ruined by the sheen of sweat that was slowly dripping down from her temples as the trickle of blood down her thigh turned into a sluggish stream.

The voice on the other end snorted. "You're gonna have to explain it to the Bossman when you get back. I don't fancy telling him you guys are late because you stopped to get a freaking facial and your nails done," Nigel sassed, speaking over what sounded a lot like a slamming door and the muffled sound of Spanish being spoken in the background.

"Oh, I intend too," Lola assured, tone promising violence as she clenched her teeth, forcing her eyes back towards her, having to crane her neck as she loomed above the prone woman.

"Fine, whatever, it's your funeral chicka. Bring me back some chew, huh?" the man sighed, tone signalling the conversation was nearing a close, "…Get your fine ass back here in one piece, ya' hear?"

"You got it, Nigel," the woman replied, eyes never once leaving her face. "See you soon."

She held out her hand, fingers dirty, curled into vicious points as the woman slapped the radio into her palm with a growl. Teeth bared – a wounded animal.

"You're fucked, you know that, right?" the woman bit out, watching, eyes fever bright, as she dropped the radio and slammed the butt of Fornell's rifle down across it until the casing cracked, stomping the innards flat – leg screaming  _bloody murder_  as every blow jarred her injured thigh.

The pain was grounding.

"We'll never stop hunting you," the woman hissed, free hand curling in the dirt as she dragged herself forward, seeming to forget  _who_  was holding the gun as thick line of red trailed behind her. "You, everyone you love. Hell, anyone you've even so much as fuckin'  _sneezed_ on, I'll-"

"I don't have anyone," she replied, cold enough to bite. Only this time the truth was freeing – terrible, but freeing. "Not anymore."  _She'd keep them safe. Even out here. They deserved that much._

"Doesn't matter; we'll make you pay," the woman spat, almost crazed now as a sheath of thick strawberry blonde fell over her eyes, hiding her expression.

"I know," she said; tone heavy as she raised her gun, meeting the blonde's angry green eyes as realization swept across them. They reminded her of Rick's eyes – watery and distant – before she pushed the thought away.

The safety clicked off.

The woman's eyes widened.

The shot echoed.


	15. Chapter 15

The woman's hair caught in the dust, fluttering out behind her – a pale banner - as she dragged the blonde through the gravel. Frustrated, angry,  _exhausted_  tears streamed down her cheeks as she clenched her teeth, heaving once, twice, then again before she finally made it past the tree-line. She half fell, stumbling against the trunk of a weedy looking willow before propping herself up, every part of her shuddering, struggling for air.

There were a thousand choirs playing inside her head, a thousand different melodies, a thousand different possibilities. They were routes she  _could_  have taken, choices she  _could_ have made but hadn't. Perhaps that was what regret was. A maze of choices – unthought of and just as easily dismissed. She should know after all, they were the same type of regrets that'd haunted her long before her wedding day. She'd walked into that eyes open. She hadn't had it in her to call it off.

She didn't regret pulling the trigger – she regretted that the woman's actions had made it necessary.

Because ironically enough, the woman had been telling the truth, they would've never stopping searching for her. Not that it would have taken much effort in the first place, her bus stuck out like a sore thumb and she was a stranger here. She was alone and from what she could tell, they were set up and heavily fortified. They had people, supplies. They knew the area and were probably set up no more than fifty clicks from the highway – more if they were smart.

The woman's legs were splayed, fish-belly white with the right thigh rucked up, bent almost double over top Drake's waist. Her shirt was uneven, baring her midriff. She caught herself in the act bending over, fingers itching to smooth the fabric. Forcing herself to remember that if their situations were reversed, the three of them probably wouldn't have had the courtesy to shoot her in the head when they were done. To make sure she didn't come back.

She dragged the bodies into the brush, stumbling – falling again and again as her bad leg threatened to crumple underneath her. But she didn't stop. She had to clean this up – _clear_. She gnawed on the inside of her lip until blood seeped across her tongue.  _Penance._

_That was what you were supposed to feel, right?_

She emptied their SUV, everything she could use, weapons, ammo, the lot of it. There were a few boxes of MRE's and half a case of bottled water in the back – useful, but certainly not the haul the woman had promised. She re-checked everything, every compartment, every crevice and trunk, but still,  _nothing._

_Was Macon really that picked over already?_

She untangled the woman's machete from the pile of gear, hesitating before taking it too. She tossed it in the direction of the bus before she set about siphoning the rest of their tank – half full – determined that nothing would go to waste.

The acrid taste of pulverized grit and stale petrol lingered on her tongue for hours afterwards.

She left their SUV where they'd parked it, riddled through with bullet holes – keys still in the ignition. Figuring that if anyone came looking, they'd assume the three of them had gotten into a skirmish with another group and lost. Either way, she planned to be long gone before then.

It was long past dusk by the time she collapsed into the driver's seat. Her hands, still caked with murky-red, streamed, sending flakes of dried blood free-falling across the dash before they tightened around the wheel.

She felt wrung out, used _\- taken advantage of._

Was this what it was going to be like? How the world worked out here?

The steering wheel took the majority of her weight as she leaned into it, stomach churning as the aftertaste of blood and gas singed the roof of her mouth. She chanced a look outside, getting caught up in the sight as the interstate stretched out in front of her. A single walker stumbled between cars, emaciated and torn. It didn't seem to have a direction, it was just –  _walking_. It felt like looking in a mirror.

_Did it smell something? Did it know? Could it sense what'd happened? What she'd done? What they'd forced her to-_

She started the bus with a tired sigh, angling back towards the highway. She was exhausted, but knew she couldn't stay here. She couldn't. She didn't want to.

She didn't have the gas for it, but she knew she had to move. Figuring she could find a better, more secluded place to pull over farther up the road. Somewhere she could hole up for a few days.  _Heal._

So, with a heavy heart, and a glimpse back at the horizon, she headed deeper into Macon.


	16. Chapter 16

She spent the next few days recovering. She taped the holes in the glass and swept out the spent cartridges, taking stock at her near miss. She burned the papers, the journal entries from the people who'd lived here before her, the drawings and childish scribbles, everything she'd collected since she'd started to trace the whereabouts of the weapons cache.

She burned it all and she told herself she felt nothing.

She stayed off her feet and her leg slowly improved. Days passed like this, some she did little more than move on to the next rest stop, the next abandoned field. She got in the habit of moving the bus every day – radio tuned to the frequency of the blonde woman's radio, just in case. But all she got was static. She took that as a good thing.

Sometimes she slept.

Sometimes she didn't.

Three days after the ambush she woke to the taste of tears and laughter. The sound was muffled but pure as it rolled out in the back of her mind, expanding, like the gentle crest of an ocean wave, imperfect yet worth remembering. It was the first time she'd dreamt of the others since – well – everything.

She sat up in bed, joints cracking as she stretched. The material of her yellow tank felt starchy and rough against her skin – she resisted the urge to scratch. But only just. She pulled the blankets up to her chin, a shallow smile curling around the corners of her lips as she let the memory sink in.

It had been three months since they'd lost Lori, three months since Andrea and the Governor. Three months since Rick and Daryl had returned to the prison with the survivors from Woodbury. It had been raining so everyone had been cooped up inside for most of the day. It had been one of those unseasonable rains that hit without warning and settled in to stay. Turning the prison into a dribbling mess of dank halls and the occasional leaky roof, with the smell of wet concrete and rusting metal inescapable no matter where you went.

And to be frank, Judith's mood had been just about as foul as the weather.

She was doing her best to quiet her, absent-mindedly jingling a ring of keys and tapping her foot in time as she sang the chorus to some song she remembered hearing on the radio, when Daryl shouldered his way through the door.

"What's with her?"

He eyed the crib sideways, leaning up against the wall, dripping water and looking slightly cross-eyed when Judith's screams only increased. He skirted around the edge of the room as Judith wailed, avoiding the side of the crib like they were dealing with some sort of explosive ordinance rather than a grouchy three month old.

"As far as I can tell? Nothing," she remarked, sending him a tired smile as a windmill of tiny fists and feet flailed through the air, only just visible over the side of her Styrofoam crib.

"Then why is she practicing her soprano?" he replied, brow raising incredulously as Carl and Patrick darted past the door, sending them a quick wave on their way out to the fences – the latter with his hands pressed against his ears as Judith's screeches echoed down the hallway.

She sighed, frustrated. "Sometimes babies just cry, Daryl. Her diaper is fine, she's been burped, she isn't hungry, isn't running a fever. Sometimes you just have to let them sort these things out for themselves."

She looked down, wincing when Judith discovered a new pitch, trying to distract her with the keys as her little face scrunched up in rage. "I remember with Sophia, when she was this age she used to-" she stuttered, stopping, shoulders drooping like the wind falling out of the sail of a clipper ship. She swallowed, blinking away a sudden sheen of tears.

She'd promised herself she wouldn't do this anymore. She'd promised that she was done crying, done with-

The hand that came to rest on her shoulder was feather light and cautious. To anyone else it might have felt indecisive – insincere. But she knew better; that caution, that deeply ingrained insecurity that lurked in the backdrop of every word and every action, made each offering, however small, infinitely more precious because of it.

She shook her head, forcing herself back to the present, pretending not to notice when her lip trembled. He never would have admitted it but she knew he would've made a good father. Still might someday. Lord knows they needed some joy in their lives, after all.

God, she missed them. All of them.

This time she didn't hesitate. She didn't tell herself to be strong, or force herself to get up and shake it off. She just buried her head in her hands and cried. Figuring that at the end of the day, she'd probably earned herself a moment.


	17. Chapter 17

If she were asked to pick the exact moment where she finally rose above the crippling smog, honestly she wouldn't have been able to tell you. All she knew was that nearly a week after the ambush she woke up feeling, well,  _different_. She felt lighter,  _better_.

Perhaps it  _was_  true, that time heals all wounds.

Though, in the back of her mind, she knew it wasn't about time – not fully. Because she hadn't forgotten, in fact, she'd promised herself she wouldn't. That was the point right? Learning? Internalizing one's mistakes? Life wasn't easy, but she could be human about it, she could have regrets. Something she _couldn't_  say for the likes of Fornell and his group.

So, she hadn't forgotten. But perhaps, she'd found it in her to move on.

If anything, she figured it was a start.

_Did Rick regret it? Leaving her behind?_

She supposed it was something she was going to have to tackle in baby steps.

It was only when she'd recovered enough to take stock of herself that she realized she was in trouble. She was low on gas  _and_  ammo. But more immediately, since she'd been cooped up with her wounds, the bottled water she'd salvaged from the SUV had run out faster than she'd anticipated. And worse, she used the last of her chemical tablets two days later, desperate and knowing she had to stay hydrated as the last of the fever slowly filtered out of her system.

She needed to do another supply run – that or risk drinking the water from a nearby stream. She had a collection of empty jugs left over from the previous occupants; it wouldn't be too hard to-

She held back a shiver, revulsion crawling up her spine at the thought. Before all this, before the illness that'd spread through the prison, she'd had no problem drinking boiled water. The prison had been self-sufficient; the same water they drank and bathed in watered the crops and fed the animals. They'd set up filtration system not long after Daryl had found Henry rooting through one of the cars on the interstate. It was something the two of them, along with Sasha, had cobbled together after they'd gotten fed up wasting fuel to boil it.

But before that, boiling their drinking water had been the standard. They'd done it any number of times on the run. During the winter after they'd lost the farm, at the Quarry months before that. Sometimes the water hadn't even been boiled; taking the risk when they'd no other choice.

But she didn't think she had that luxury now. Not after everything that had happened. They still had no idea how it spread. Perhaps they'd figured it out – cured it since she'd been gone. She hoped so. They'd lost far too many as it was.

She drummed her hands on the steering wheel, peering out across the abandoned interstate. The windshield was partially filmed over with dirt and grime – it'd been out of washer fluid since she'd found it. A group of walkers shuffled past, oblivious to her presence as she remained still - silent in the front seat.

The frayed material of a hospital gown fluttered in the light breeze, a tattered trouser cuff, a wisp of a skirt.  _Shadows._ Death pantomiming life, you'd think she'd be used to it by now.

The scent of old death and rotting flesh filtered through the air long after the group disappeared – stumbling down the endless line of abandoned cars until the distance swallowed them.

 _She had to make a decision._ Try for supplies at the next turn off or take the chance that her gas tank would last long enough to get her to the next one.

She bit her lip as she looked over the map. Since she'd arrived in Macon she'd shaded over large sections of the county, each chunk was crossed out with a thick x – bold and often unsteady depending on how close of a call her escape had been. Some of the areas were overrun. Others were mostly deserted, but already so picked over by other survivors that there was no point risking a second look. Right now she was in between two shaded sections. There was only about thirty miles in between them. Too close for comfort.

Finding bottled water these days was like stumbling across liquid gold in the Arctic.  _Almost impossible._  But right now, she'd settle for a tin of sanitizing tablets, which meant a hunting and supply store. Something geared towards camping, deep woods and out of the way.

Either way, she knew the decision, through necessity, had already been made.


	18. Chapter 18

She parked the bus beside a junk yard, locked up and crawled out the emergency hatch. She was about half a mile from a small shopping complex she'd only ever driven past before. She picked her way carefully, keeping to the ditches alongside the interstate, uncomfortable with being so out in the open. She couldn't afford to waste the gas; she had less than a quarter tank already. She approached cautiously. Save for the far end – a restaurant with a collapsed roof, exterior licked with soot and charred wood – the rest of the complex looked virtually untouched.

She made short work of the locks and chains, using a pair of deadbolt cutters as she ignored the passive aggressive messages the owner had left on the door. It wasn't exactly unusual; most owners had closed their doors long before the infection reached their respective counties. Back then people had been more worried about looters than the disease. Most had never made it back.  _What a waste._

She found nothing in the first two stores, a small strong man outlet crammed full of dusty table saws and brand name camping gear. She snagged a few things, a few waterproof blankets and a solar shower – all useful, but not what she was looking for.

She walked past one of the tills, fingers trailing across the worn chrome, etching her mark as a single walker scuffed across blacktop, only just visible through the soot-covered window. She waited for it to pass, a man with stringy black hair and a ripped up uniform –  _Macon Country Fire Department._

She found a door in the back of the store that led into the adjoining building. She couldn't help but grin as she jimmied the lock.  _Not even a deadbolt._ She let herself in quietly, leaving footprints in the dusty tile as she shined a flashlight into the gloom. A stack of fly fishing poles leaned hap-hazardly off the end of a shelf.

_Bingo._

The drink cooler was empty. But then again, she'd pretty much expected that. There was a dented can of Sprite lying on its side on the very bottom shelf, but she pocketed it anyway. She probably needed the sugar. That and she couldn't remember the last time she'd actually tasted anything other than warm juice, weak tea and water since Rick had left her in the suburbs.

Her heart sank when she rounded the corner and found the rack of chlorine tablets and clarification strips empty. Her free hand curled into a fist at her side. The next store was almost fifteen miles down the interstate and deep into one of the overrun sections she'd already identified her first week in the area.

_Dammit!_

A film of frustrated tears threatened to fall, but she blinked them back, not even surprised this time when Daryl's voice rose up in the back of her mind.  _No use crying about spilled milk. Get out there and use it. You're angry? Frustrated? Good. Now go out and fucking do something about it._

She had to admit he had a way with words.

She triple checked, combing through every aisle, every shelf, matching product numbers to boxes that had been stuffed in the back and still nothing. But just before she was about to give up, she remembered the filtration system Henry and Sasha had constructed at the prison.  _Perhaps they sold something similar?_

It took another hour of searching, but after painstakingly matching the right product number to a shelf in back of the warehouse, she finally pulled a large, spider-infested box out from underneath a pile of discontinued tents. She stamped on a few scuttling creatures, nose wrinkling in disgust as one of the nests burst open, covering the filthy cardboard with a million squirming black flecks.

She took her belt knife to the box and pulled one of the filtration kits free. It was heavy, forcing her to drag more than carry it back to the window at the front of the store. She read through the instructions quickly, flitting back and forth from the aisles to the window as she collected the rest of what she needed. It seemed simple enough; the only thing was getting everything back to the bus.  _That was going to be the hard part._

She doubled checked the parking lot before she went out through the back, not trusting that there weren't more walkers lurking about. The box in her arms made traveling any real distance a hundred times more complicated than it should have been, but at this point she didn't see any other choice.

She was making her way around the back of complex when she heard it, the soft, lilting strains of a song, off-key but calming. She paused, almost stumbling as the box in her arms set her off balance. She craned her head, listening. But there was nothing.

She must have imagined it.

She shook her head. She'd been alone for too long. That was all.

The long grass swayed around her, a golden-murky brown as the voice started up again. The soil was sun-parched and cracking under her feet. But she ignored it, focusing instead on placing one foot in front of the other, arms already aching with the strain.  _Her mind was playing tricks on her._

It wasn't until she made her way around the side of the building, stepping around a pile of crumbled mortar from the burned out restaurant, that she realized she'd been wrong.

_Dead wrong._

The song petered off in mid-chorus, hiccupping to silence as a woman - young, filthy and brown haired blinked up at her like a startled hare. Looking just about as surprised as she felt when she skidded to a stop in the loose gravel, caught between flight and fight.

For a long moment they just stared at one another.

The woman fidgeted, sitting cross legged atop a pile of rubble from the western wall – something not visible from the road. She cursed herself for not double checking _. Christ, what'd she been thinking?_

The woman didn't move. She just stared, wide eyes and fear you could practically  _taste._ She made no move to grab the buck knife strapped to her thigh, or call out, nothing to alert the people she could now hear, thumping around the inside the restaurant, swearing and joking. Their voices were distinctly male – rough and far too loud.

And strangely enough, the longer the moment stretched, the more she realized she had absolutely nothing to fear. Not from her at least.

"…Hello," she tried, keeping her voice low and unthreatening before she leaned down, the movement slow and unhurried as she placed the box she was carrying at her feet. She raised one hand, palm up, as the woman flinched backwards, almost as if she was expecting a strike,  _a hit._

_It was an expectation she knew all too well._

"My name is Carol," she added. "…Sorry if I startled you, I was just stocking up," nudging the box with the toe of her boot, angling it so the woman could see the label. "Don't be afraid…I don't mean you any harm."

The change was interesting to observe as the woman slowly lost her 'deer in the headlights' stare. She watched first hand as it morphed from fear and shock, to hope – if only briefly – before, strangely enough, _horror_.

"You-…" the woman whispered, stuttering, curly brown hair whipping back and forth as her gaze flew from her, to the hole in the restaurant in clear panic. "You can't be here. You have to go!  _If they see_ -."

The very tips of the young woman's hair still held a hint of color, a washed out dirty blond that was starkly different from the dark roots. It was in need of a wash. Same with her clothes, which where faded and baggy on her form. Her face, freckled and tanned, held a pinched look, something reminiscent of a person who'd lost a significant amount of weight in far too short a time.

Suspicion rose up in her throat like bile.

"Are you alright? Are they…you can come with me, it's safe.  _Just me_. I have a vehicle, supplies," she offered, eyes trailing down the woman's form closely now. Expression hardening as the off-colour tinge of faded bruises stood out across her left forearm, the side of her neck, and angry underneath her pointed chin.

" _I can't_ ," she hissed, if anything more desperate. "Gavin, my fiancé, I-" she stuttered, doe-eyed and scared but seeming to take heart when she didn't reply, giving the young woman space as the rest of the words came out in a rush – a harsh, yet vibrant little whisper that sparked  _something_ deep in the heart of her.  _Kinship? Understanding?_  It was impossible to tell.

"He never lets us go out in pairs. If I don't come back they'll kill him. The Council, that's how it works. I can't leave him behind, I won't!" She trailed off, fiercely torn but stubborn.

"I understand," she whispered, because she did, in a way. She understood the emotion, the desperation, if not the situation.

A sound from inside the restaurant caused them both to startle, jerking backwards as the woman made a desperate 'shooing' motion, clearly unwilling to let the others see her. The poor thing was  _terrified._

"Where are you? I have a group," she added urgently, tripping over the word - wincing at the inadvertent lie. "Maybe we can help? I could get them to-"

"You can't, he has men,  _dozens_. You either go on runs or they make you-" the woman's swallow was hard, like she was struggling to hold the words back, acting like they were somehow shameful,  _wrong._

"Last winter we were desperate. We got caught on Stone Mountain, the herds, the storm. We heard them on the radio – they said they'd take care of us, anyone, but they didn't say how. They didn't say that they'd force the women to-"

The significance of what the woman  _wasn't_ saying thumped heavy and angry in the back of her chest. An iron weight that constricted the more she fought for breath.

"Go, please, just  _go!_  They can't see you,  _please!_ "

"Hey! Who 'ya talkin' to out there, woman?! Huh? You trying to get us all caught?"

The woman's pupils blew wide as the sound of footsteps suddenly echoed from inside the building. Her fear was contagious as the younger woman gestured at her fearfully, eyes silently pleading – desperate for her to leave but with just enough regret that it actually hurt, when, with one last fleeting look, she grabbed the box and ran.

It wasn't until later, when she collapsed, exhausted across the dirty floor of the bus, sweating salt and dirt across the rubber treads that she allowed herself to wonder.

_Was this how it was going to be? How life was now? In the wild? Was everyone who'd survived this long just as messed up? Were there any normal, decent people left?_

She shook her head, taking in the smell of worn rubber and the acrid tang of dirt.

There is a beast inside every person that breathes. She'd seen that much for herself. But she'd always figured it came down to  _choice_  as to whether or not you let it run free. The idea that people _had_  that choice was the important part - the knowledge that you  _could_  choose.

That being said, she didn't know what to do with the knowledge when she realized that so far, all she'd found were the monsters.


	19. Chapter 19

She'd been getting water when it'd happened - filling up a few of the jugs the previous occupants had left behind in a river just north of the county line. Despite her close call with the brown haired woman and her group two days before, she was eager to set up her new filtration system, tired of having to rely on warm juice and the trickle of stale water she had left in her canteen.

She was distracted; tired from walking the length of the stream, more than a mile in either direction, making sure nothing immediate was polluting it. She hadn't been thinking. She hadn't been paying attention.  _She'd gotten careless._

She hopped over the concrete divider and onto the interstate without checking to see if she was alone - crunching through a pile of broken glass and twisted metal with relish as she came around the side of the bus. Her arms were full, juggling the half full containers as she reached up, one foot on the ladder as she pulled the back door - the only entrance she'd left unlocked - open.

She didn't notice the group of walkers, less than fifty meters from where she'd parked the bus, until it was too late. She'd only just shoved the first one into the back when an excited groan alerted her.

She whirled, getting an eyeful of tattered clothes and outstretched limbs. One, no –  _two_ of them, newly turned, broke out into an all-out  _run_ , while the rest trailed behind, shambling, but gaining rapidly.

_Shit!_

The jug in her hand broke across the pavement, soaking through her shoes even as she turned, scrambling, wasting precious seconds as she hiked herself up through the back window. She hit the worn rubber treads with jarring force, teeth gritting as her bad leg twinged in warning. She kicked out, trying to gain traction to pull herself forward.

She was halfway down the aisle, limping towards the driver's seat when the twin thumps of two solid bodies slammed into the back bumper. The sound of two or three more reverberated through the undercarriage as she threw herself into the driver's seat, jamming the key into the ignition.

Nothing happened.

She blinked, horror tightening across her face as she turned the key. Once. Twice.  _Again_. Her skin felt taut, pulled thin with terror as she slammed her hand down on the dashboard.  _This wasn't happening!_ She refused to believe that this was how things were going to end, how she would-

The motor spluttered mutinously.

The gas gauge hovered, a hair's breadth from the red.

_No._

She let go of a startled cry when a fist broke through the emergency glass behind her. But the dull crash of warped Plexiglas and rusted metal was the only sound she heard. Filthy fingers reached - shredded, bloody and scrabbling as the walker pressed its face against the hole, teeth snapping. They were beating down the glass, coming in through the vulnerable rear door.

She slammed down on the gas, flooding the motor, panicking, as the rest of the pack closed the gap, shambling towards the back of the bus as the second walker forced its shoulders through the hole, widening it. The first walker slammed its fists across the glass, splitting its nails as spider-thin breaks started spreading - seconds away from shattering.

_She had to-_

Her Glock was in her palm before she'd even finished the thought, aimed and level with the door as she tried the key. She turned it once, twice, and then again -  _praying_ the motor would turn over. She didn't have enough ammo to deal with all of them. She wasn't going to be able to-

The back window exploded. One moment it was cracking, a mess of fine lines and bloody smears, and the next it was bursting inwards, raining shards down the aisle and across her bed roll. She whipped around, gun wavering, just in time to see the first walker pull itself up, boney feet tangling in the bed sheets. It snarled as the second one climbed up behind it, using its legs to lever itself inside. Her finger slammed down on the trigger the same moment the engine hiccuped, spluttering to life as the rest of the pack collided with the back bumper.

The shots were loud – echoing out again and again until her ears were ringing, until all she could hear was the high pitched whine of frequencies dying. It was a swan song of tinny echoes and annoying tones that almost drowned out the sound of beating fists and gnashing teeth. Walkers were pressed against the glass, reaching, trying to squeeze their way through the broken window three at a time.

The bus rumbled forward, grudging and sullen until the last dredges of gas filtered through the engine and the foot she'd mashed down on the accelerator sent the bus shooting forward.

There was no time to navigate, no time to kick out the bodies or figure out what the hell she was going to do when the tank ran out. Barely ahead of the mob, she yanked on the wheel, sending the bus slamming through a tangle of crunched cars - all twisted metal and ruined front bumpers, sending luggage and trash careening off to the side until she hit the open road.

The bodies in the back remained where they'd fallen, slumped down the aisle, a stinking jig-saw of limp limbs and dried flesh that jumped and twitched at every bump. It was such a convincing pantomime of life that made her keep one eye behind her, just in case.

She only made it about half a mile down the interstate before the indicator for the gas gauge began flashing.

And honestly, considering her luck these days, she really wondered if she should've been surprised.


	20. Chapter 20

_They were coming._

That was the only thing flashing through her mind as the bus hiccuped, a strangled purr of sound that filtered out on a high note. It sounded promising just before the engine gave out completely. The bus coasted for a few meters, inertia carrying it forward until it finally glided to a stop. She put it into park on pure reflex, barely thinking the action through as every inch of her went on point.

She was in the middle of nowhere, squashed between two of the most heavily walker infested blocks on her map. She was low on ammo, maybe half a clip, not enough to deal with the herd that was practically at her heels. Firing her gun now would only draw more of them. She'd already seen some, struggling through the long grass on either side of the median.

She had five minutes.  _Tops._

Briefly, she considered making a run for it, trying her luck in the woods and fields, but that idea was quickly abandoned when she realized walkers were already crawling up the embankment beside her. They were struggling through the mud and weeds, clawing at the dirt as they pulled themselves up inch by inch, groaning –  _excited_.

_They'd seen her._

She grabbed her pack, moving automatically. Her hands were shaking as she shoved in some food, strapping the machete to her back and tightening the holster for her Glock around her thigh. The two other weapons, the blonde woman's Ithica and Fornell's Mossberg had only two and three rounds apiece – hardly worth the weight to carry them. She hesitated, but finally shoved them in between the straps of her pack, snug against the small of her back.

_What the hell was she going to do?_

She looked back, one hand clenched and heavy on one of handholds – perfect for the usual rush hour crush - that ran across the length of the ceiling. Her eyes caught on the bodies of the two walkers and for the first time in a long time, she did a double take.

_She couldn't possibly-_

Blood speckled across her face when she ripped the machete back up, swinging it down again and again as she hacked open the first walker's rib cage. It'd been a man once, tall and broad shouldered with short blond hair that went stringy around the temples, sports shirt weather beaten and stained dark. Black blood and horrified tears trickled down her cheeks as she let go of a disgusted cry, angry and afraid as she caught a glimpse of the first of the herd making its way around the bend in the road, not a hundred meters from her.

She fought against the urge to be sick as gore flew off the tip of the blade and splattered across window behind her. The smell of old death and putrefying flesh was heady –  _pervasive_.

She severed an arm, then a leg, cleaving the torso into a mashed up stew of snapped ribs, partially coagulated blood and hacked up organs. She smeared the mess into her coat, feeling it gush between her fingers as she painted red down her sleeves. She zipped the collar up to her chin before draping a hand, severed at the wrist, from the back of her pack. She tucked it into the straps as she took another handful of gore and worked it into her jeans. Her hands disappeared into the corpse, digging deep as she yanked out a piece of intestine. Bile churned in the back of her throat as she chanced a look behind her, hesitating for a split second before she tied it around her waist – fumbling.

The herd was picking up speed, gaining on her, closing in as their shamble turned into a lope – getting riled up as they sensed fresh meat.  _Did they recognize the bus? Could they see her? Smell her through the broken window?_

Either way, it didn't matter.

_God, she hoped this worked._

She could hear Daryl's voice in the back of her head as she fisted the machete, fingers slick with red as she tightened the straps of her pack. Sometimes the only way out wasn't necessarily the best one. Sometimes it hurt. Sometimes it was hard. But it was a chance. And a  _chance_  was better than nothing.

She took one last breath, heart thudding painfully in her chest, stepping off the back of the bus just as the herd enveloped her.


	21. Chapter 21

She stumbled along with the herd for close to half an hour, flooded with fear and adrenaline, before she finally started to relax.

Other than a few suspicious sniffs and the sudden crush when she'd fallen into the middle of them, they didn't seem to notice her. They'd accepted her as one of their own, answering her moans and grunts as they milled around the bus – confused.

_She didn't smell like prey. She smelt dead. She smelled like one of them._

It was an ill-timed nightmare chorus that chilled her to the core, causing her to shudder every time one of them got close, every time they brushed past her, knocking shoulders. She moved with the pack, unsure, skin prickling as their fetid breaths ghosted down the back of her neck.

She slowed her steps, gradually dropping back towards the end of the herd. Her hand fisted around her machete, nearly gagging as the scent of her gore covered clothes rose around her, the putrid smell simmering in the mid-day heat. She tried to breathe though her mouth, gorge rising, but instead of helping it only made it worse. Because now she could taste it in the air –  _on her tongue_  – overwhelming and sick.

_She couldn't._

A walker, skin missing all the way from flank to hip, knocked her back. Shoulder checking her as she almost lost it. She pressed a hand against her lips, mouth flooding with salvia, cheeks furnace-hot – dizzy.

_Pull yer'self together!_

It wasn't her voice. It was Daryl's, dark and angry -  _disappointed_.

She reared back, forcing herself to straighten.  _She could do this._  She could get herself out of this. All she needed to do was make it to the next exit. Everything else came second. She could start over, she was good at that. She just needed a few more minutes, she could linger back and-

The closest walker slowed, tilting its head towards her, sniffing the air.

_Oh god._

Blood-shot pupils widened, discoloured irises contracting as it shuffled close. It'd been a girl once, a teenager, probably no older than Beth – and she was fresh. There was a bite mark, all raised flesh and pearling blood along the ridge of her collarbone, another on the inside of her wrist. Its curly black hair caught on her gore covered jacket, curious now as the thing circled around her – assessing. She forced herself not to react, to keep moving,  _stumbling._

The thing's lip curled, a mockery of a monster as it bared a line of worn looking braces - a human smile. There was no blood there, no flesh that had gotten caught between its teeth, no skin stuck underneath its nails. She swallowed hard; looking down at her feet with what she hoped was a convincing groan, copying the walker's sway in front of her –  _around her_  – as it let go of a guttural sound, something throat-deep and rumbling.

_It knew._

Her hands fumbled around the hilt of her machete. Anticipation curled up her spine as the thing bared its teeth, snapping, getting riled up as the walkers closest to them started to notice – pausing in mid step and milling restlessly as the herd slowed to a stop.

A gunshot cracked – sudden - the sound as vibrant as firecrackers on the Fourth of July.

The walker closest to her jerked, following her example as she forgot herself, whirling in place. She tried to pin-point the direction as the rest of the herd did the same, their previous interest suddenly forgotten as they lurched towards the overpass, groaning excitedly.

A second shot rang out, a third, then a  _fourth_  – all in quick succession, as if whoever was shooting was being besieged on all sides, trying to fend off walkers on the run.  _Was someone trapped? Someone stuck out in the open like her? Who? Were they on foot? God knows that was just askin' for trouble._

She got caught in the center of the group as it pushed forward, limping down the overpass, weaving between wrecked cars and overturned trucks, as a fifth echoed, singular and lonely in the still air.  _Whoever it was, they were desperate. They had to be. Riskin' popping off rounds like that._

The herd pushed forward, scuffing across the blacktop, tripping into the brush as thin branches whipped across her skin. She bit her lip as their group intersected with another, growling as the new walkers scented the air. They pressed in from behind, jostling her as they fought for position near the front of the group.

Sweat broke out at her temples, chill despite the oppressive heat.

A branch snapped ahead of her, right on the heels of a frustrated curse as a sudden exclamation – more of a raw burst of sound than anything else – filtered through the trees.  _Close enough to touch._ She sucked in a breath, catching a flash of a wife-beater and a long swath of tanned skin between a pocket of spindly birches and leaning pines.

She figured it was all over until they made it through the tree line. Surprised to find they were still alive – still fighting. She stepped out into a small clearing, only to be assaulted by a dozen different things at once.

A man, short red hair, green khakis and military tags, was surrounded near the edge of the clearing. Fallen walkers dotted the ground, trailing out behind him like wilted flower pedals. But it was the smell that did it, that completed the picture of what had happened here – of what  _was_ happening. Because the air around her head smelt like salt and expelled shot, like the flash bang of heated metal and the tang of warped casings as the man fired over his shoulder, making a break for the far end of the clearing.

She shambled forward, keeping up the act as the group of walkers broke away from her, closing around him as he tripped, almost falling into the long grass before he dropped one of the backpacks he was carrying. Abandoning what looked like a pack full of canned goods when it became apparent it was either that or his life.

But even then it was clear it wasn't going to be enough. Despite being in good shape, with a body that was hardened, well used to roughing it, the man was wheezing, _exhausted_. His clothing was soaked with sweat and speckled with red – he'd been running for a long time. She slowed, cautious now as he shot blindly, taking out a walker just to the left of her, painting her with arterial splatter.

 _He wasn't going to make it,_ she realized. The truth was all over his face.  _He knew._  But he wasn't about to give up. He was a fighter. Even now, when his death was staring him in the face, he  _wanted_  it.  _He wanted to live._

She moved without thinking, skirting around the edges of the clearing, speeding up when she realized neither the man nor the walkers had noticed her presence. If she could just make it around to the other side of him maybe she could-

Familiarity rose up in her throat, warm and bitter when he lost it, cursing,  _yelling_  as he dropped another and another, shoving the last clip into his Glock just in time, a walker missing him by barely a millimetre. Sweat rolled down from his hairline, darkening the auburn red as a set of dog tags, dented and attached to a bracelet around his wrist, flashed in the afternoon sun.

She surged forward, decided.

The light around her fractured when she took out the first walker with a sweep of her machete, yelling a smattering of words over her shoulder as the man jerked, surprised, gun wavering for half a second before her words sunk in.

"I've got your back!"

They were the first words she'd spoken aloud in  _days_.


	22. Chapter 22

The man's decision to trust her seemed, at least to her, remarkably effortless. Because before she could really internalize it, somehow they were fighting back to back, calling out positions, covering the other when they could. He abandoned his Glock, whipping out a Marine K-bar when her machete got stuck, lodged deep in the skull of a walker, taking out the one she hadn't even seen behind her with a singular blur of movement.

She lost track of how many fell, all she knew was how she felt. Her arms were aching, skin sweat-slicked and irritated as she wallowed under her gore-streaked coat. Her ears were ringing with the sound of the last of her ammunition as she tossed the Mossberg and Ithica to the side.  _Empty_.

She felt exhausted, invigorated.  _Alive!_

It didn't end gradually, when it was over, when they were safe, the clearing a battlefield of sprawled corpses, it happened suddenly.  _They were still here – alive_. They met eyes, looking for the next walker, the next mark. But instead of another walker, all they saw was each other.

The grip around her machete slackened, a steady stream of red dripping off the tip as her heartbeat gradually began to slow. The man just looked at her, all cocked head and serious blue eyes. And frankly, she stared right back.

It wasn't until a handful of moments had trickled past that he finally spoke.

"I'd thank you, but at this point, I figure that's pretty inadequate," the man admitted, lips a firm line across his face, knuckling the back of his neck with something close to discomfort as he gave her a quick once over. She forced herself to stand tall and remain unaffected as he took her measure.

_Let him look._

She made no move to sheath her machete and was gratified to notice that while his Glock stayed holstered, the knife was still there, half hidden in his palm. And strangely enough, something in her softened at the sight. He reminded her of Daryl - of herself.

The old her would have rushed to assure him otherwise, to say it was nothing – nothing she wouldn't have done for anyone else. But she didn't. She'd changed, perhaps in more ways than one. Back then she would've tripped over the words, rushing to get out of the spot-light, nervous and flustered at the sudden attention. But now, she just nodded, the gesture more an acknowledgement of his words than anything else.

"What's your name?"

His lips quirked, almost as if he found the question amusing. "Abraham Ford, ma'am," he replied. The hint of a Texan drawl colored the backdrop as he scuffed the sole of his boot across the long grass, trying to rid himself of the worst of the blood before he nudged one of the walkers, a woman with long brown hair, onto her side, hiding her wide, sightless eyes with a tired grunt.

She blinked, surprised at the gesture. She hadn't even noticed.

"And you, ma'am?"

She shook her head. She hadn't been a ma'am for a long time. "Carol."

He smiled, craggy and real in the best and worst of ways, enough to make her hopeful and homesick all at once. He smiled more freely than Daryl did, but not completely without cost. She could already tell that he wasn't one for empty gestures or social graces. Like Daryl, he said and did what he meant – what he felt – not what he figured he ought to. The parallel was actually warming. They were similar, but with enough differences that the contrast was welcoming.

She wasn't looking for a replacement, or a surrogate, a stand-in for the real thing. She didn't need that. But a friend? A reminder? That was a different story.

"Well Carol, believe me when I say it's a pleasure," Ford returned, smile small, expression just a bit more closed off when he offered his hand, palm out, for her to shake. She wasn't sure which of them was more surprised when she took it, shucking off one of her bloody gloves and clasping his hand with a firm grip.

The man looked around, taking in the clearing and the walkers, her pack, and the abandoned weapons at her feet – clearly making his own conclusions as he made to speak.

"You out here on foot?" the words weren't condescending, what she might expect from a man of his experience and temper, rather, simply curious. She wondered how long it had been since he'd seen another living person – even someone outside his own group if he had one.

"I am now. I lost my bus about a quarter mile down the interstate. Ran out of gas and got boxed in," she explained, gesturing down at herself, her expression twisting a bit at the memory. "I had to get creative. That's when I heard the gunshots."

"I can see that," Ford drawled, taking her in with another quick  _flick-flick_  before balancing on the balls of his feet, stretching out a sore shoulder as a light breeze whipped through the long grass. His tone was amused, yet, clearly impressed as she adjusted the straps on her pack.

The pause was awkward before he finally broke it.

"You can come back with me if you want. Least I can do after all," he offered. "My group is small, there's only the three of us, but what we have, we share. Rosita will be happy for some female company, I'm sure," his expression universal in its amusement as he sheathed his k-bar.

"We're set up about five miles from here, if you don't mind hoofin' it. Even if you don't wanna stay, at least you can get cleaned up. Rosita probably has some clothes that will fit'cha," he added, gesturing with the crook of his thumb, off-center and calloused.

A smile threatened to spread across her lips - brittle and dry despite the fact that in any other situation she might have actually laughed. "That bad?" she asked, already knowing the answer.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd laughed.  _Weeks? A month? Had it truly been that long?_

"I wasn't going to say anything but you are a bit of a mess," he joked, dusting off his khakis, sending her a well-intended smirk that fell when her expression changed.

Her laugh was more of a choked off sob. "You have no idea."

He leaned down, grunting a bit as he picked up the Mossberg and made to hand it to her. But she paused in the act of reaching out, suddenly feeling the need to be clear,  _transparent_. He deserved to know after all, considering what he was offering. He deserved to know who she was - what she'd done.

"I've done things, terrible things," she managed; hiccupping as she struggled to breathe, close to losing it in front of a complete stranger. Her chest fluttered, ribs straining against her skin. Suddenly irrationally afraid that her heart would burst clear out of her chest as she rode the coat-tails of an impending panic attack.

But when she finally forced herself to look up, her expression as steady as she could manage, she was surprised to find not derision or suspicion reflecting back at her, but rather, understanding.

"So have I. We all have if we've survived this long," he deadpanned, expression serious, but with not even a hint of revulsion lurking in the backdrop as her palm closed around the cool metal of the barrel. His pale blue eyes seemed suspiciously watery when he broke her stare and looked off towards the horizon. The sun was slung low in the sky, early for this time in the afternoon. Summer must finally be ending.

She opened her mouth to explain, to tell him he was wrong, that he didn't know.  _How could he?_ But he spoke over her.

"We've-  _I've_  made bad decisions. Bad calls. Mistakes. I've done things I regret - had to do them. But I've also done things I don't. Things I  _should_  regret, but can't," he began, running a hand through his hair, slicking the copper strands with sweat and grit, appearing to choose his words carefully.

"We're  _all_  fucked up. We're all the same. Hell, the way I see it, it's almost comforting if you think about it," snorting a bit before making to continue. "And while I figure no one is lily-white anymore - if we ever were - as long as we can tell the difference, I reckon we'll be just fine."

She took a deep breath, uncertain as her thoughts sunk and rose, reordering themselves in the back of her mind as she tried to figure out how she should feel. How his words made her feel.

And honestly, she wasn't sure what to think when she realized that instead of denial, instead of recrimination and self-doubt, all they really felt like was rain to the soul.

"You out here all by your lonesome?" he asked, giving her time to think as he started digging through his pockets, pulling out a handful of shells - reloading the magazine on his Glock with a practiced hand. The copper red of his hair caught the light, highlighting the play of muscles that trickled down his shoulders as he threw the pack he'd abandoned over his shoulder.

He seemed genuine, yet real. In fact, everything about him spoke of stability, of good intentions warped by one hell of a temper. It was something he kept caged - leashed, almost as if he were saving it for something or someone else.

It was a loaded question. But she seized it tentatively.

Her thoughts – a stream of consciousness that played back, past the prison, past the winter on the run, the farm, the highway, all the way back to the quarry, simmered in the back of her mind. There was a surety there now; a sense of realism and hope that she was certain hadn't been there before.

Something in her stance shifted, _settling_.

Because she knew now, she knew that somehow she would find Daryl – find the others. Someday, she would. And when she did, she'd make it count. She was tired of waiting. Of letting other people decide what she wanted and when. She was done letting other people call the shots, playing second fiddle to her own life story. She knew what she wanted.  _Him._  And deep down, underneath the scars and wounded layers he kept wrapped around him like a shield, she knew he felt the same.

The man, Ford, sent her a look, quizzical but patient. And for a split second, she swore he knew.

To anyone else it might look like she was considering his offer. But in truth, she'd already made her decision. Because until then, until they found each other, perhaps there was some good she could do. Perhaps there was a purpose for her out here that existed beyond herself, beyond a life of just surviving.

She smiled, watery but hopeful.

"…Not anymore."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N #1: Thank you for reading. This story is now complete. I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who has been with me on this fic. I have valued each and every one of your lovely comments, pms, and reviews. Your enthusiasm and drive to get to the 'next' chapter made this well worth the effort! I never expected this fic to last from the start of the hiatus to the end, but crazily enough, it did!
> 
> Reference: For those not familiar with the comic, or are unaware of the casting for the second half of season four, Sgt Abraham Ford (and his group) are characters we are going to be seeing very soon. Due to the risk of spoilers, if you are interested in any further information on this character, feel free to google him. There is a picture of him, from the show's promo pictures available on google images also, if you want to put a name to a face.


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